Windows – Rename OneDrive for Business folder in Explorer

onedrivewindows-explorerwindows-registry

After installing Office 365, I have a new special folder in Explorer called "OneDrive – Company Name LLC".

I found a registry key at Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace whose value matches that text (and it's the only match in the registry), and I confirmed previously that deleting it will remove the entry from Explorer, so I assumed I could rename it here. However, it does not seem to work. I changed the value and even rebooted, but the display value did not change.

How can I rename my personal OneDrive folder?

Background/reasoning:

I have synced a Sharepoint document library as a public share of sorts. It shows up as "Company Name LLC". My personal OneDrive shows up as "OneDrive – Company Name LLC". This has already led to confusion with some employees. They thought they were putting files in a public space but were not. Ideally it would be named something like "OneDrive – Personal Folders".

Best Answer

This is a hacky, but the only working solution:

  1. First, close OneDrive: Click the icon in the taskbar, select More... then Close OneDrive
  2. Next open Registry Explorer: Press Win + R, then type regedit and hit enter.
  3. Press Ctrl + F to search for all occurrences of OneDrive - <Company> and replace these with the new desired name.
  4. For all files in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive (i.e., enter %AppData%\..\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive in the address bar) and subfolders, replace all occurrences of OneDrive - <Company> with the new desired name.
  5. Rename your original OneDrive - <Company> folder to the new desired name.
  6. Reopen OneDrive.
  7. OneDrive might realize that the folder name has been change and will ask to set up the OneDrive folder again. Do not do this or else your work will be reverted!

Consider voting for the Rename-OneDrive-Root-Folder feature on UserVoice:

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