Microsoft hid the photo app it put on your PC uninvited. It's still installed.

Around 29 July, a new entry appeared in Start menus on millions of PCs: OneDrive Photos. It wasn't announced, it wasn't offered in the Microsoft Store, and nobody agreed to it. It simply rode in on a routine background update to the OneDrive sync client, landing on Windows 11 and Windows 10 machines alike - including managed work PCs, where it often refused to open at all.

What it is, technically, is a web page in a window. It runs as OneDrive.App.exe using WebView2, and it shows your local pictures next to whatever you've backed up to OneDrive, with a Memories panel and a People tab that sorts photos by face. Microsoft's Jeff Teper conceded the rollout was a mistake, saying the company is incubating a new photos experience in OneDrive that "went more broadly than it should have."

The follow-up arrived this week. As of 21 August, OneDrive Photos no longer appears in the Start menu app list or in Windows Search results. That's the fix, and it's cosmetic. The app is still on the disk and still starts if you go into the OneDrive folder and run the executable directly. Uninstalling it today means uninstalling OneDrive sync with it; Microsoft has said separate uninstall controls are coming later this year, without naming a version or a date.

If the face-grouping bothers you, that's the piece to look at - Microsoft's own documentation acknowledges it collects and stores facial scans to make the People tab work, and it's a feature you should have been asked about rather than handed. Tendvane's Unwanted scan (System > Unwanted) now detects OneDrive Photos on your PC and offers an honest Uninstall: it tells you plainly that, for now, the app can only leave together with the OneDrive sync client, makes a restore point first, and leaves your cloud files untouched - OneDrive can be reinstalled any time.