Home windows 11 has a foul behavior of filling File Explorer’s navigation pane with issues I did not ask for. House, Gallery, and OneDrive now sit on the prime of the usual pane by default, and so they’re simply there taking on area each time I open a folder. I went in search of methods to take away them.
Seems, none of them have a built-in toggle. Home windows does not make it simple by way of Settings and even File Explorer’s personal choices, so the one path is by way of the registry. You’ll be able to run just a few focused edits that disguise every of the above sections cleanly, and when you do you will have a way more easy folder tree together with your pinned folders on the prime and This PC beneath it. This is methods to make that occur.
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Cease settling for a subpar Home windows expertise.
Easy methods to take away House from the navigation pane
A registry tweak is all it takes
House has been within the Home windows 11 navigation pane since 2022, and it is mainly a replica of Fast Entry. It reveals the identical pinned folders and up to date information, simply with a special identify and a little bit home icon. Should you already use Fast Entry, House is simply redundant.
With a view to take away House out of your File Explorer pane, you will must hop into the Registry Editor by urgent Win + R, typing regedit, after which hitting Enter.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerDesktopNameSpace and search for the important thing {f874310e-b6b7-47dc-bc84-b9e6b38f5903}. Proper-click this key and select Delete.
Shut the Registry Editor and restart File Explorer with a reboot of your machine or Restart Home windows Explorer below Processes within the Job Supervisor. When you do this, House needs to be gone from the navigation pane, although your pinned folders ought to stay.
Getting Gallery out of the way in which
Gallery reveals up the place you least anticipate it
Gallery made its first look on Home windows in 2023. It does one factor: pulls photos out of your Footage folder and OneDrive Digicam Roll and reveals them altogether in a single scrollable view that is sorted by date. That could possibly be helpful, positive, nevertheless it additionally seems in file picker dialogs, the window that opens while you attempt to connect a file to an e-mail. It isn’t enjoyable to need to scroll previous a wall of photos simply to get to the remainder of the folders in your machine, so eliminating Gallery is the repair.
The trade-off is that for those who do use OneDrive Digicam Roll sync, Gallery is the one place in File Explorer that reveals these photos robotically. Eradicating it means navigating to your OneDrive folder manually to seek out them.
Should you resolve to go ahead, hit Win + R and kind regedit. Press Enter after which navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerDesktopNameSpace. Search for the important thing {e88865ea-0e1c-4e20-9aa6-edcd0212c87c}, then right-click and delete it. Shut the Registry Editor and restart File Explorer as above. Gallery needs to be gone from each your File Explorer navigation pane and your file picker dialogs.
Easy methods to cease OneDrive from exhibiting up in File Explorer
The repair that sticks
OneDrive could be probably the most persistent characteristic right here. It seems on the prime of the navigation pane everytime you’re signed in to your Microsoft account and in contrast to House and Gallery, it does not keep gone.
The registry path is HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}. Open Registry Editor with Win + R, kind regedit, and press Enter. Double-click the System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree worth and set it to 0.
The issue right here is that OneDrive all the time modifications this worth again to 1 on restart. So that you solely get a reprieve till you reboot the machine. The one different choices to completely do away with OneDrive is to unlink your OneDrive account, uninstall OneDrive fully, or disable it by way of Group Coverage, however provided that you are utilizing Home windows 11 Professional.
Your PC, your method
Now that you’ve got finished all of the above, you need to be left with a cleaner navigation pane that displays how you utilize your PC, not the way in which Microsoft desires you to. Your pinned folders needs to be on the prime, with This PC just under it, with nothing else getting in the way in which. It could be a small change, nevertheless it improves File Explorer instantly.
