Where is sync data stored? How can I delete it from the cloud?

Iron Contributor

Title says it all. I'm testing Edge syncing for my company. However... where in the cloud is the data actually saved? How can I delete it and wipe out any data tied to a particular account?

12 Replies

Hi,
it's stored in the Microsoft cloud servers, if you want to delete them, simply delete them from your Edge browser. the browser sync reflects any changes you make to your data back to the cloud and to all other devices that are syncing.

 

https://microsoftedgewelcome.microsoft.com/en-us/privacy

@HotCakeX 

 

Thanks, but how do I get at them in the cloud? In an O365 enterprise environment we will end up with piles of orphaned data from hundreds of old users. I'm not going to sign in as someone and then go to Edge and manually delete everything.

 

This is company information that can contain favorites, history, passwords, etc. I need to be able to delete these administratively.

 

I've already looked through the privacy link you sent and the closest I can find is this:

 

However, users can easily switch between existing profiles in Microsoft Edge without the need for passwords. If they have access to the same device, users can get to another profile on the same version of Microsoft Edge without the permission of the profile owner. Removing the profile from Microsoft Edge settings will permanently delete browsing data stored on the device like browsing history, favorites, form fill data, and passwords. Data synced to your account may still be stored in the Microsoft cloud and can be cleared from the Microsoft privacy dashboard.

 

I can't log into the dashboard and neither can anyone else at my company. It's only for Microsoft accounts, not O365 enterprise accounts.

 

Can someone from the Edge team please respond? I don't think it's asking too much for control over my own company data.

Ah O365 accounts, I thought you were using personal accounts,

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-enterprise-sync

 

Where is Microsoft Edge sync data stored?

Synced data for Azure AD accounts is stored in secure servers according to the tenant ID. For example, the data for a tenant that is registered in the United States is stored in servers geo-located for that region and uses the same storage solution as Office applications. While the synced data for Azure AD accounts is encrypted before leaving a user's device, it is further encrypted when stored in the cloud.

 

but no info about how to delete them..

 

 

Thanks for the pointers. Sorry, I guess I should have added some more details. We sign in with domain accounts which are synced to Office 365. We don't use any state roaming or anything else and nobody has a true Azure AD account like P1, etc.. Obviously when I sign into Edge my sync data is going somewhere tied to my profile.

 

EDIT -- Looks like you beat me to it and are exactly where I am stuck. No info on how to delete the data or manage from an enterprise view.

Can someone from the Enterprise team please comment on this? I still cannot get an answer. If I am storing Enterprise data in the cloud I should be to see where it is stored and delete if necessary. Thanks!

@josh_bodner 

BUMP!

If a user is deactivated or leaves the org, how can I delete their data? Or, if troubleshooting, how/where can I delete it myself to reset? Still silence on this. Hello, can someone from Microsoft please help?

 

@kqf_chris can you file a support ticket at https://microsoftedgesupport.microsoft.com/hc please? Our support agents will be able to help you better there in case personal data needs to be collected.  

I'm probably a bit late, but I found this: https://www.easytechguides.com/delete-web-browser-sync-data/

TLDR;
In the browser go to: edge://flags
Find: enable reset sync and enable it
Goto your profile -> sync
Press the reset sync button on the bottom
...
Profit!

@ERottier 

 

In our case we have a user that when sync is enabled Edge crashes immediately upon opening. I wiped his PC and Edge worked fine until he had to sign in to Outlook with his Office 365 credentials. once he did that even though I said not to sync data his data sync'd and edge started crashing again. We can't get edge to stay open long enough to run through the steps. 

 

How can we delete the sync'd data that is causing the issue when you can't get edge to run long enough?

We have someone with the same situation and haven't identified a solution yet.

@Paul_Reed470 @cweeks 

There are two things I can think of, but you may have done one or both already.

 

1) Reset the users' profile. In case of the computer wipe, I have profiles redirected to network disks (with their own problems) so wiping does not always mean a clean profile.

2) Reset the data in the cloud with this Microsoft doc: Reset Microsoft Edge data in the cloud

 

With nr 2 you delete the cloud sync data. I cannot fanthom anything else that could go wrong if you have no data locally AND in the cloud. Unless it's an issue with the authentication bit, but with a clean install...

 

Good luck!

We had already recreated the user profile. In fact, we tried on multiple computers. The corruption was on the cloud side. Number two could not be completed because Edge would crash as soon as the user signed into their MS account. This is a shortcoming of only have a reset option on the client. What if the client can't start because of corrupt cached data? This needs to be addressed. Anyway, we were finally able to resolve the issue by deleting the local Edge profile then having her sign into Edge then immediately access Edge://sync-internals and disable sync (quickly before the sync could complete and crash the browser). After disabling sync we then reset the cache from there in sync-internals. Not an ideal solution but this seems to be a fringe issue.