Microsoft Graph API - How to Delete a Folder with Children - azure

Question

I could use some help deleting a folder using the Microsoft Graph API. The api call below works, but only when the folder is empty and has no children.
DELETE https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drives/{{driveId}}/items/{{driveItemId}}
The folders are created and deleted using the same client application and permissions
It's a folder in a Sharepoint document library if that matters at all
I tried adding an If-Match header with the current eTag of the folder, but that didn't make any difference.
Here's the response I'm getting:
409 Conflict
{
"error": {
"code": "resourceModified",
"message": "The resource has changed since the caller last read it; usually an eTag mismatch",
"innerError": {
"date": "2022-10-17T21:40:30",
"request-id": "b3d35695-...",
"client-request-id": "b3d35695-..."
}
}
}
Is there a way to force the delete, or do I have to clear it out before I can delete it? If I have to clear it out, what's the easiest way to do that?

Answer 1

I tried to reproduce the same in my environment and got below results:
I have one Azure AD application and granted API permissions like below:
To call Microsoft Graph, I acquired access token using client credentials flow via Postman as below:
I created folder in my SharePoint document library using above token with below query:
POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drives/<driveID>/items/
{
"name": "Sri Folder",
"folder": { },
}
Response:
When I checked in SharePoint Online, folder created successfully in document library like below:
Now I added children to the created folder by uploading one file to it with below query:
PUT https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drives/<driveID>/items/<driveItemId>:/test.txt:/content
Response:
When I checked the same in SharePoint Online, file is uploaded to the folder successfully like below:
Now, I used the same query as you to delete the folder with children by adding If-match header and got same error like below:
DELETE https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drives/<driveId>/items/<driveItemId>
If-match : etag_value
Response
To resolve the error, you need to replace If-match header with eTag.
I tried the same query by replacing If-match header with eTag, it returned Status: 204 No Content like below:
Response:
When I refreshed the page in SharePoint Online, got this error as folder got deleted along with its children:
I checked opening document library and cannot find the folder as it got deleted successfully: