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How to Disable Navigation Pane in Windows 10

The Navigation pane is a special area on the left of File Explorer which shows the folders and system places like This PC, Network, Libraries and so on. Here is how to hide this area if you find no use for it.

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The user is not allowed to customize the Navigation Pane because the user interface lacks the required options, but this is possible with a hack. See this article:

Add custom folders or Control Panel applets to Navigation Pane in File Explorer
The following screenshot shows the File Explorer app with the navigation pane enabled.

Windows 10 Status Bar In Explorer Disabled

The next screenshot shows File Explorer without the navigation pane.File Explorer Nav Pane Disabled Windows 10

There are a number of ways to switch the visibility of the Navigation pane. Let's review them.

Disable Navigation Pane in Windows 10 Using Ribbon UI

In Windows 10, the File Explorer app comes with the Ribbon UI instead of the menu and a toolbar. You can use it to toggle visibility of the navigation pane.

To disable the navigation pane in Windows 10,  do the following.

  1. Open This PC in File Explorer.
  2. In the Ribbon user interface of Explorer, go to the View tab.
  3. There, click on the Navigation pane button to disable or enable the navigation pane.Navigation Pane Button In Ribbon In the drop down menu of the button you can see the Navigation pane item which will be checked or unchecked.Navigation Pane Button Drop Down Menu

This is how you can disable (hide) or enable (show) the navigation pane in File Explorer quickly. Alternatively, you can apply a Registry tweak as described below.

Disable Navigation Pane in Windows 10 with a Registry tweak

You need to import the following Registry tweak:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Modules\GlobalSettings\Sizer]
"PageSpaceControlSizer"=hex:a0,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,ec,03,00,00

Copy-paste the text above into a new Notepad document and save it as a *.REG file.

Hide Navigation Pane Tweak Contents

Hide Navigation Pane Save Tweak

Then double-click the file you created to apply the change.Hide Navigation Pane Import Tweak

The undo tweak is as follows:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Modules\GlobalSettings\Sizer]
"PageSpaceControlSizer"=hex:a0,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,ec,03,00,00

To save your time, you can download these ready-to-use Registry files.

Download Registry Files

Manage Navigation Pane with Context Menu

Finally, you can add a special context menu command to quickly toggle the navigation pane.

You can get something like this.

Navigation Pane Context Menu

Or

Windows 10 Layout Pane Context Menu

Or

Windows 10 Organize Context Menu

See the following articles:

That's it.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

One thought on “How to Disable Navigation Pane in Windows 10”

  1. I found it easier just to use Ribbon Disabler

    The Ribbon is convoluted and makes me use more steps and or clicks to accomplish what I used to do with the classic menu.

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