When you point towards a shortcut, a folder, or a file, you get a tooltip (also known as an infotip). While in general case I find them useful, there are a number of reason to disable them. For example, you need to capture a clean screenshot or watch a file list without a distraction. Here is how you can disable tooltips in Windows 10.
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Tooltips are not an exclusive or new feature of Windows 10. Since my first days at computer, Windows always had them. In Windows, almost all elements have tooltips. The Start menu button, files and folders in File Explorer, Ribbon commands have a brief description which reveals details on what is the object you are pointing on.
Here is an example of a tooltip in Windows 10:
Tip: If you want, you can customize the tooltip as described in the article: Add More Details to Shortcut ToolTip in Windows 10.
To disable tooltips in Windows 10, do the following.
- Open This PC in File Explorer.
- In the Ribbon user interface of Explorer, click File -> Change folder and search options.
If you have disabled the Ribbon, press F10 -> click Tools menu - Folder Options. - In the "File Explorer options" dialog window, switch to the View tab. Untick the item called Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items.
- Click Apply and OK buttons.
Tooltips will be disabled instantly in File Explorer.
Alternatively, you can apply a Registry tweak as described below.
Disable Tooltips in Windows 10 with a Registry tweak
Here is how it can be done.
- Open the Registry Editor app.
- Go to the following Registry key.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
See how to go to a Registry key with one click.
- On the right, modify or create a new 32-Bit DWORD value "ShowInfoTip". Set its value data to 0.
Note: Even if you are running 64-bit Windows you must still create a 32-bit DWORD value. - To make the changes done by the Registry tweak take effect, you need to sign out and sign in to your user account.
That's it.
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This method doesn’t work. You go to ebay and still have tool tips on the photos. tool tips is incompatible with the ebay zoom feature and creates a huge hassle on each picture you want to zoom in on. There should be a simple way to disable this. If you come up with something please email me. I’m very frustrated.
@bob, the eBay tooltip that displays on image hover drives me crazy, too. I think that is an HTML issue, not a Windows issue. I believe it happens when they add a title attribute to the image tag.
Hello,
thanks for the tips, but they don’t work in Windows 10 (Pro, 20H2).
I still see popup-/infotips (i.e. when hovering with mouse-cursor over symbols in systray/taskbar, or hovering over my userprofile-image it shows the name).
Who knows a possibility to disable these popups/tips systemwide?
Thanks!
I’ve tried this several times on windows 10 20H2 and it’s never worked. These “infotips” are annoyingly distracting and tend to cover up other things on the screen. Another poorly thought out windows 10 screw up by microsoft. Unless, of course, they did it intentionally just to annoy people.