How to Determine the Origin of a Group and How to Remove It
Jul 29, 2025
Lifecycle Management
Okta Classic Engine
Okta Identity Engine
Overview
This article details how to determine the origin of a group using the Admin Dashboard.
Applies To
- Okta Groups
- Application Groups
- Okta Admin Dashboard
Solution
Okta admins can differentiate the origin of groups in the Okta Admin Dashboard by the group's icon.
- Okta Sourced Groups have the Okta logo. Administrators can delete these groups directly in Okta.
- Groups coming from AD (Active Directory) will have the Windows logo, and admins can also see the path of the group under the group's name. To delete AD groups, admins must first delete them from AD and run an import from AD into Okta. Admins cannot delete them directly in Okta.
- Groups coming from LDAP will have the LDAP logo, and admins can also see the group's path under the group's name. To delete LDAP groups, admins must first delete them from LDAP and then run an import from LDAP into Okta. Admins cannot delete them directly in Okta.
- Groups imported from Okta applications will show the application logo. An example with Office 365 can be seen below. These imported groups can be deleted in one of the following ways:
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- Remove the group in the downstream application and run an import from that application into Okta.
- To remove all groups imported from an application, please follow the steps outlined in Remove groups imported from provisioning-enabled apps.
- If the imported AppGroups cannot be deleted with the steps above, these groups can be removed manually using the Okta API. The How to Delete an Unwanted Group via API Using Postman article goes into more detail on how to accomplish this.
NOTE: Deleting groups in Okta is a permanent process. Before deleting any groups in Okta, please verify that deleting this group will not negatively impact user application assignment or resource access.
