Drop Hive external table WITHOUT removing data

Question

The goal is to destroy a Hive schema but keep the data underneath.

Given a Hive external table, created for example with script 1, it can be dropped with script 2. This deletes the data (removes the folder /user/me/data/). This folder has to remain for use in other projects.

A long search does not yield anything so far...

Script 1: Create an external table

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE external_hive_table(
    column1 STRING
)
ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
FIELDS TERMINATED BY
    '\t'
STORED AS TEXTFILE
LOCATION
   '/user/me/data/'
TBLPROPERTIES (
    "skip.header.line.count"="1");

Script 2: Drop external table (drop data)

ALTER TABLE
    external_hive_table
SET TBLPROPERTIES (
    'EXTERNAL'='FALSE');

DROP TABLE external_hive_table;

Edit: Script 3: Drop external table (keep data)

 DROP TABLE external_hive_table;

Solution

Use only this statement (without alter table):

DROP TABLE external_hive_table;