Removing Cloud Storage Icons from Windows 10 Navigation Pane

One thing that I tried to adjust to as I made the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 was some of the UI differences. One of the relatively small in impact, but large in annoyance, changes for me was the change to the Navigation Pane in Explorer. Favorites had been replaced with Quick Access. That was fine, they function mostly the same, and I can pin items to Quick Access.

I did notice that after installing my various cloud storage applications (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox) that they were being placed on the same level of the navigation pane as This PC and Quick Access itself. I didn't want them there, I wanted them in Quick Access so they could be out of sight if I wanted to collapse it.

My initial thought was to just drag the different icons to Quick Access, which did give me the option to pin them there (half of what I wanted), but didn't get rid of them from their original location (the other half of what I wanted). If you're trying to achieve the same result as I was, then this should help.

Windows 10 Navigation Pane as I wanted (for the most part)

Let me preface this with the same thing everything will tell you before suggesting making changes to the registry of your machine: Only do this if you're know what you're doing, and have made a full backup of your entire registry, and know that changing your registry can mess things up pretty bad.

That being said, you can remove those pesky items from the Navigation Pane by modifying the registry. Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe) in whatever manner you normally do (Win+R, Start>Run, they are all equally great) and head to the following registry keys for the applicable application:

OneDrive

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}

OneDrive for Business

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{423105FA-58D0-46DF-80FF-627D1DC360BC}

Dropbox

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}

Dropbox Business

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1B}

In each of these keys, you'll a REG_DWORD called System.IsPinnedToNamespaceTree. Double-click the item to change it's value from 1 to 0. Look at Explorer and it should be gone.

Get outta my NamepaceTree, Dropbox!

On 64-bit versions of Windows 10, you may notice that even after the above changes that the offending applications still appear in File Open/Save/Browse dialogue windows. You can remove them by making the same change to the registry key of the same name in:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID

After making these changes, however, it appears that Dropbox just keeps adding itself back (by modifying the value of System.IsPinnedToNamespaceTree) when it launches.

Not a total fix, but it got most of the ones that were annoying me.