[Tip] Remove Quick Access Icon from Windows 10 File Explorer
In Windows 10, when you open File Explorer (also known as Windows Explorer, This PC, My Computer, etc), you get “Quick Access” icon in Navigation Pane. If you don’t know about Navigation Pane, it’s the left sidebar or folder tree pane which is shown in File Explorer window. It allows to select and navigate through drives and folders easily and quickly.
Quick Access is a new feature in Windows 10 which shows a special homepage in File Explorer containing frequently used folders and recently used files. It’s the default view of File Explorer and if you launch File Explorer, it opens in Quick Access view.
Many people don’t like the new Quick Access view in File Explorer and they want to restore previous default view in File Explorer which shows list of drives. To help those people, long time back when Windows 10 was released to public, we posted a tutorial to disable Quick Access view and bring back classic view in Windows 10 File Explorer. You can read the tutorial at following link:
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How to Disable Default “Quick Access” View in Windows 10 File Explorer?
Once you disable Quick Access view in File Explorer, you may also want to get rid of the Quick Access icon showing in Navigation Pane in File Explorer. We also posted a tutorial to remove Quick Access and other icons from Navigation Pane in Windows 10 File Explorer which can be found at following link:
[Windows 10 Tip] Remove Icons from Navigation Pane of This PC
The Part 2 in above mentioned guide contains the method to remove Quick Access icon from File Explorer’s Navigation Pane in Windows 10. But this method causes issues in drag-n-drop functionality in navigation pane.
That’s why today in this article, we are going to share another way to remove Quick Access icon from Windows 10 File Explorer’s Navigation Pane. This new method is extremely easy and doesn’t cause any side-effects.
If you also want to remove Quick Access icon from Navigation Pane in Windows 10 File Explorer, following steps will help you:
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1. Press WIN+R keys together to open RUN dialog box. You can also open it from WIN+X menu. Now type regedit in RUN dialog box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.
2. Now go to following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
3. In right-side pane, right-click and select New -> DWORD option. Set its name as HubMode and change its value to 1
That’s it. You don’t need to restart your computer or File Explorer. Just close all File Explorer windows and then re-open File Explorer. You’ll notice that Quick Access icon has disappeared from Navigation Pane.
PS: In future, if you want to restore Quick Access icon in Navigation Pane, change value of HubMode to 0 or delete HubMode DWORD from Registry Editor.
Also Check:
[Tip] Remove 6 Extra Folders from Windows 10 Explorer “This PC”
Finally! Thank you for this. In the past getting rid of Quick Access would mess up the file manager like with dragging and dropping files to other folders wouldn’t work. I wonder why now it works. Thanks again!
^^ In older Windows 10 versions, we had to use workarounds as mentioned in old tutorial. Now newer versions of Windows 10 allow to remove Quick Access using the Registry key mentioned above.
What of on x64 just followed the same process but no change
^^ The method was tested on 64-bit system.
I have tried several times still can’t possible you can make registry key
^^ Use following:
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Finally after days of trying to make this happen – your method of HubMode WORKED!
Finally, it worked. Thanks for your nice work, Sir.
Since using this method the quick access icon has show up on the desktop and can’t be deleted. If I remove or disable the HubMode D word the desktop icon will not go away.
^^ Can you share a screenshot? Also what options are listed in right-click menu?
Great work – thanks for the advice.
Is it possible to restrict it for user-level instead at machine level
Changing HKLM to HKCU didn’t worked
^^ I have not tested on user level but the only possible way would be using the above mentioned method for following key in Registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
VG thank you for this. i love you!