How to Troubleshoot The Error – Cannot Remove an App from SharePoint

Introduction

When trying to remove an unwanted SharePoint app, sometimes an error is displayed something like the following:

• Sorry, we couldn’t remove the app
• Sorry, we couldn’t remove your app, Please retry as soon as possible

How to solve “Sorry, we couldn’t remove the app”

In most cases the cause of the issue is related to some kind of Compliance Retention Policy that blocks the deletion.

To remove the app, you should first check if you have a Compliance policy assigned to the specific SharePoint site. There are several ways to check that:

SharePoint Admin Center

Using a SharePoint Administration role, open the SharePoint Admin Center site

https://<your tenant>-admin.sharepoint.com/

Then navigate to Active sites > and search & select the site you want to confirm if it has a retention policy:

Compliance / Purview Portal

Then navigate to Purview Portal (Compliance) > Policies > Retention, and then open any policies listed under Retention Policies and check if SharePoint classic and communications sites has in the Status column On. If so, then check what if under the Included column, if All sites is specified:

Microsoft Diagnostic Tool

With an account that has sufficient access to the Microsoft Admin Portal, open the link below provided by Microsoft

https://admin.microsoft.com/AdminPortal/?searchSolutions=Diag%3A+Invalid+retention+policy+for+SharePoint+or+OneDrive#/homepage

In the right-side pane that opens, enter the SharePoint or OneDrive address that you want to check, then click Run Tests

How To Exclude a SharePoint Site From A Retention Policy

Now we have established that the site is part of a retention policy, they only option is to exclude it temporarily so that the app can be removed.

Click here to view an article on how to Exclude a SharePoint Site from a Retention Policy