Remove a public folder in Exchange Online

You may need to remove public folders that are no longer being used in your organization. To help determine which public folders should be removed, see View statistics for public folders and public folder items.

What do you need to know before you begin?

Use the EAC to remove a public folder

  1. Go to Public folders > Public folders.

  2. In the list view, select the public folder you want to delete. You can click Open a public folder to open the subfolders of that folder, where you can click to select a specific subfolder to remove.

    To delete a folder or subfolder, select the checkbox of the intended folder and click Delete Delete icon.. If you click the underlined name of the folder, the Delete option won't be available to select.

    Screenshot that shows openapublicfolder

  3. A warning message displays asking if you're sure you want to delete the public folder. Click Confirm to continue.

Use Exchange Online PowerShell to delete a public folder

This example deletes the public folder Help Desk\Resolved. This command assumes that the Resolved public folder doesn't have any subfolders.

Remove-PublicFolder -Identity "\Help Desk\Resolved"

This example tests the previous command without making any modifications.

Remove-PublicFolder -Identity "\HelpDesk\Resolved" -WhatIf

This example removes the public folder Marketing and all its subfolders because the command runs recursively.

Remove-PublicFolder -Identity "\Marketing" -Recurse:$True

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Remove-PublicFolder.