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.
The next screenshot shows File Explorer without the navigation pane.
There are a number of ways to switch the visibility of the Navigation pane. Let's review them.
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.
- Open This PC in File Explorer.
- In the Ribbon user interface of Explorer, go to the View tab.
- There, click on the Navigation pane button to disable or enable the navigation pane.
In the drop down menu of the button you can see the Navigation pane item which will be checked or unchecked.
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.
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.
Then double-click the file you created to apply the change.
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.
Finally, you can add a special context menu command to quickly toggle the navigation pane.
You can get something like this.
Or
Or
See the following articles:
- Add Navigation Pane Context Menu in Windows 10
- Add Layout Context Menu in Windows 10
- Add Organize Context Menu in Windows 10
That's it.
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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.