[Tip] Disable Cortana and Bing Search Results in Windows 10

One of the first things which most of the people notice on Windows 10 Desktop after installation, is the big Search box present on the Taskbar. This new Search box is actually Cortana, the digital personal assistant implemented in Windows 10. Cortana has replaced the traditional Search box present in the Start Menu in Windows 10.

Cortana is an intelligent personal assistant developed by Microsoft similar to Apple’s Siri, Google’s Google Now, etc. It talks and performs some basic tasks when you type or speak the commands in Cortana. You can either type your search queries or click on small microphone icon to use voice commands.

Cortana was first implemented in Windows Phone 8.1 and Microsoft decided to bring it on computers by implementing it in the new Windows 10 operating system. Cortana helps you in searching for apps, files, settings as well as searching online for your queries using Bing Search engine.

Although Cortana is a good addition to Windows 10 but some users may want to disable Cortana for privacy issues. Also Cortana doesn’t seem so useful on Desktops when you have access to keyboard and mouse.

So today in this tutorial, we are going to share a few easy ways to turn Cortana off in Windows 10 as well as completely disable Cortana in Windows 10.

So without wasting time lets start the tutorial:

METHOD 1: Turn Cortana and Bing Search Off Using Cortana Settings

Microsoft provides options to turn off Cortana and Bing search results in Cortana settings page:

1. Click inside the Search box on Taskbar to launch Cortana. Now click on the Settings (Gear) icon.

2. Now set following options to Off:

• Cortana can give you suggestions, ideas, reminders, alerts and more
• Search online and include web results

That’s it. It’ll turn Cortana and Bing search results off in Windows 10.

You can also click on “Manage what Cortana knows about me in the cloud” link given on the Settings page to clear your personal data stored on the cloud by Cortana app.

METHOD 2: Remove Cortana Search Box from Taskbar

After turning off Cortana, you can also remove its Search box from Windows 10 Taskbar or convert the Search box into a small Search icon with the help of following tutorial:

How to Remove Cortana Search Box from Windows 10 Taskbar?

As you can see in the above screenshot, Cortana Search box is no longer available on Taskbar.

METHOD 3: Disable Cortana from Privacy Settings

Cortana collects lots of personal data such as contacts, calendar events, speech, handwriting patterns, typing history, etc to know more about you so that it can provide better suggestions and search results to you.

You can disable Cortana and clear all this collected data using Settings app:

1. Open Settings app from Start Menu. Alternatively, you can press WIN+I keys together to open Settings directly.

2. Now go to “Privacy -> Speech, inking, & typing” and click on “Turn off speech services and typing suggestions” button.

PS: Alternatively, You can directly launch this page using “ms-settings:privacy-speechtyping” command in RUN dialog box as mentioned here.

3. Windows will show a confirmation message, click on “Turn off” button.

That’s it. It’ll immediately disable Cortana on your computer and will also clear collected data on your device.

Related: [Guide] Best Privacy Settings for Windows 10

METHOD 4: Disable Cortana Using Group Policy Editor

If you want to completely get rid of Cortana in Windows 10, you can disable Cortana functionality using Group Policy Editor:

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type gpedit.msc in RUN and press Enter. It’ll open Group Policy Editor.

2. Now go to:

3. In right-side pane, double-click on “Allow Cortana” option and set it to Disabled.

That’s it. Apply changes and it’ll completely disable Cortana functionality in Windows 10.

PS: If you decide to re-enable Cortana in future, double-click on “Allow Cortana” option and set it to Not Configured.

METHOD 5: Disable Cortana Using Registry Editor

If you are using Windows 10 Home edition, you’ll not be able to run gpedit.msc command because this edition doesn’t come with Group Policy Editor.

If you can’t use or don’t want to use Group Policy Editor, you can take help of Registry Editor for the same task. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type regedit in RUN and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

3. Create a new key under Windows key and set its name as Windows Search

4. Now in right-side pane, create a new DWORD AllowCortana and set its value to 0

That’s it. Close Registry Editor and restart your computer to take effect. After reboot, Cortana will be disabled in Windows 10.

PS: To re-enable Cortana in future, delete the DWORD AllowCortana created in step 4.

NOTE: If you are not familiar with Registry editing tasks, we are also providing ready-made Registry script to do the task automatically. Download following ZIP file, extract it and run .REG file. It’ll ask for confirmation, accept it. Restart your computer and Cortana will be disabled in Windows 10:

METHOD 6: Remove Cortana App Completely

If you want to completely remove Cortana Search app and its SearchUI.exe process running in background, check out following tutorial:

[Windows 10 Tip] Remove Cortana, Microsoft Edge, Contact Support and Feedback Apps

Also Check:

[Did You Know] Windows 8 “Search Everywhere” Feature Still Works in Windows 10