[Tip] Restore Classic and Minimal Full Screen Mode in Microsoft Edge

The newer version of Chromium-based Microsoft Edge web browser comes with improved Full Screen mode UI (known as Shy UI). When you open a web page in Microsoft Edge, you can press F11 key on your keyboard to enter into Full Screen mode. Once you enter the Full Screen mode, the browser automatically hides the browser frame (title bar, tab bar, toolbar, etc) along with Windows Taskbar. So you get the web page on full screen without any clutter.

To exit from Full Screen mode, you can press F11 key again or move your mouse cursor on top of the screen and Microsoft Edge shows the browser frame (title bar, tab bar, toolbar, etc) temporarily as a drop-down. Now you can click on “Exit Full Screen” button given at the top-right corner of the titlebar.

Following screenshot shows the new Full Screen mode drop-down UI in Microsoft Edge browser:

In older versions of Microsoft Edge, the Full Screen mode UI was different. When you moved your mouse cursor on top area, only a “Close” (X) button used to show on screen to exit from Full Screen mode.

Following screenshot shows classic Full Screen mode’s minimal UI in Microsoft Edge browser:

Many Microsoft Edge users may like the previous Full Screen mode UI as it was minimal and the auto-hidden toolbar and tab bar were not covering the web page top area when you hovered mouse cursor on top of the page.

If you also want to bring back old classic Full Screen mode UI in Microsoft Edge browser, this tutorial will help you.

Fortunately there is a secret preference/flag which can be modified to disable new Full Screen mode UI and restore classic Full Screen mode UI in Microsoft Edge. If you can remember, we shared information about this hidden secret trick in following tutorial:

[Tip] Enable Hidden Secret Full Screen Drop Down UI in Microsoft Edge

The same preference/flag can be used to get back the classic Full Screen mode UI in newer Microsoft Edge versions.

Following steps will help you in enabling previous Full Screen mode UI in newer versions of Microsoft Edge browser:

1. Open Microsoft Edge web browser and type edge://flags/ in addressbar and press Enter. It’ll open the advanced configuration or experiments page.

2. Now type fullscreen in the “Search flags” box.

It’ll directly go to following option:

3. To disable new Full Screen mode drop-down UI and restore classic minimal UI, select Disabled for Enable Fullscreen Dropdown option from the drop-down box.

4. Microsoft Edge will ask you to restart the browser. Click on “Restart” button to restart Microsoft Edge.

That’s it. You have successfully restored classic Full Screen mode UI in Microsoft Edge web browser.

Now try to press F11 key and Microsoft Edge will enter into Full Screen mode. Now move your mouse cursor at the top and you’ll get the single Close button to exit from Full Screen mode.

PS: If you decide to enable new Full Screen mode UI in future, select “Default” option from the drop-down box and restart the browser.

[Tip] Google Chrome Tips-n-Tricks Which Also Work in Microsoft Edge Browser