Channel folder cannot be deleted

Brass Contributor

Hi community

There are channel folders they cannot be deleted. the channels have already been deleted in Microsoft Teams.

 

The channels are deletedThe channels are deletedhere is no delete buttonhere is no delete buttonconnected to an channel ... ?connected to an channel ... ?

Tried to delete the folder with "Sharegate"

blob1616134774684.png

 

Question:

  1. Why are the folders not deletable?
  2. How can I delete this folders?

Edit: Similar topic, but no solution: Unable to delete a folder "abandoned" after channel deletion - Microsoft Community

Regards, Simon

29 Replies
I think this is due to the fact the channels are still in soft-delete state and it seems there is not yet a proper solution for this Today
Thanks for the answer.

so, I have to wait until the channels are deleted completly after 21 days?

For the record (the other thread is locked): the solution was to simply move the folder in a dummy one and then delete the dummy one. However, even moving is not available anymore through the UI. It is still possible to do it in PowerShell (as opposed to direct delete) via Move-PnPFolder cmdlet. This worked for me today.

@Francis Laurin Thank you! This is probably the most valuable reply regarding this topic on the web. I have confirmed that this still works.
After deleting the respective Teams channel in the Teams Admin Portal I then created a dummy document folder in SharePoint Admin, moved my desired document folders associated with the previous channel into the dummy folder and then, and only then, was able to delete it; otherwise you will not get the "delete" option. FTR, did not need to wait the 21 day grace period post deletion of Teams channel.

It is strange that this fix is not mentioned anywhere I looked, whether it be in official Microsoft documentation or third party like 'Office 365 for IT Pros.' Anyways, have a great day everyone!

@365forthewin 

 

What do you mean by "created a dummy document folder in SharePoint Admin" ?

From what I'm seeing there is no way to delete or move these leftover folders in the browser or Teams. PowerShell may work as mentioned above.

@Visume 

Maybe it was a solution but now...

 

Move-PnPFolder -Folder "Shared Documents/00 Proposal" -TargetFolder "Shared Documents/zz_todel"
Move-PnPFolder : To move this folder, go to the channel in Microsoft Teams
At line:1 char:1

 

I simply have no time for a support call with Microsoft. Anyone has a solution? I also have no problem to say to the enduser - you created it .. live with it 😉

Is this a deleted channel or an active channel? @StephanGee 

Also if it is a deleted channel when was it deleted?

Maybe this used to be the solution but it doesnt work anymore! when I try to move the folder I get the message: Move-PnPFolder : To delete this folder, go to the channel in Microsoft Teams

The channel is still a active channel! Does anyone else has a solution?
If i say - "go to channel" it goes nowhere.
Also i cannot see anything in the deleted channel list.

So i suspect it was deleted a long time ago. Or maybe renamed but does not find the old chan anymore.

I found a couple of workarounds by accident. Since we can't rename the folders in the Team's SharePoint document library, I deleted all the original channels and created new ones so the new file folders would match the channel names. (Obviously, this works best for brand new Teams) Then, to remove the original file folders, the first and best option I discovered is to select "Manage Access" from the file's actions menu.

    

Brian_Evans_2-1653522191635.png

 

This allows Team Owners to change a specific file to "Read Only" for Team Members, but also gave the option to "Stop sharing". By selecting this, Team Members will no longer see it in the Document Library on the SharePoint side, which is essentially the same as deleting it.

 

Brian_Evans_1-1653521824853.png

 

Finally, to hide the old folders for Team Owners, I created a new View called "Active Folders" and added a filter to only show items with a "Modified" date greater than the date that the original folders were created. Then I made that the Default View. But be careful because, not only does the filter applies to all the documents in the folders, but the default view gets applied to the Channel files tabs. (Again, this works best if you haven't actually started using the Teams site yet.) 

 

 

 

I had the same problem.
I have fix it by making a new channel with the same name as the folder. Than delete the channel. After that it is well posible to delete the folder.
This did the trick. Thanks @Ruben_Jobse
Great, this worked. Thanks @Ruben_Jobse
Great, had the same problem with an old channel and this worked for me.
This worked for me but a had to open the channel's 'Files' tab before deleting channel to successfully work. Thank you!

Nice work! @Ruben_Jobse 

I´m in the same situation. How does this work? Creating a new channel in the same group feels like reverting to the original situation.
I want both the private channel and it's sharepoint site gone.
How did you do it exactly?
Thanks in advance.

I had to recreate the channel, then delete it @keiju