Remove clickable icons from the Edge browser

In this article, we shall discuss how to Remove clickable icons from the Edge browser. Please see How to Remove Bing Chat Button from Edge Sidebar, How to configure a new tab page URL in Microsoft Edge, and how to Install Microsoft Edge Browser on Ubuntu Linux. Some of the icons that can be found on the sidebar are the “search Panel”, Copilot etc. It can prove to be helpful and make you understand a particular thing better online.

For instance, if you are reading a piece of information on the web and you come across a vocabulary that you are unfamiliar with. So, you can easily look for its meaning in the adjoining Search panel without even opening a new tab. But sometimes, this can be annoying indeed. In this guide, you will learn how to remove clickable icons from the Edge browser.

Note: For a large amount of people, the browser has become the central place of work day in and day out. As the navigation between apps to switching tabs entrenches web-based tools in our workflows, the risks to productivity mount. With the sidebar in Microsoft Edge, Enterprise users can access the productivity tools they need while staying in their workflow.

Also, see how to configure static page in Microsoft Edge browser via Local Group Policy on Windows, and How to change Windows 10 Desktop icon shortcut for fast user switching.

Clickable Icons on Edge

As you can see below, Microsoft appears to be pre-installing the Office web apps into their Edge browser. The web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are way beyond mere web pages.  

They are programs in their own right known as Progressive Web Apps or PWA. These Office PWA’s are being installed without permission into the Edge browser and Windows itself.

Customize Clickable Icons

To customize clickable icons, click on the + sign as shown underneath the icons. This will open the customised sidebar as shown below.

As you can see, I have switched some of the apps off. Click on the x button to close the window.

Remove the Edge Sidebar

If you wish to have the sidebar completely removed, head to the Edge Setting. To do this, open Microsoft Edge and click the ellipses (three dots) at the top right corner

Click on settings and then search for Sidebar as shown below

Upon toggling the “show sidebar” button, the sidebar will be removed as shown below.

Note: This setting is located under Appearance if you do not want to search for it for easy access!

Alternatively, you can right-click on the icon to customize or remove it from the sidebar as shown below. Depending on your browser version, you will have the “remove from Sidebar” or “Unpin from the sidebar”.

Allow or block the Clickable sidebar in the Group Policy

Admins have several policy options for deploying and managing the sidebar in their organization.

The following policies can be applied to the sidebar and the individual apps referenced by the sidebar.

Please see All available Policies for the latest version of Microsoft Edge, and How to Block downloads on Microsoft Edge using GPO on Windows Server 2019 and 2022

Policy Name	Caption
HubsSidebarEnabled	Show Hubs Sidebar
ExtensionInstallBlockList	Control which extensions cannot be installed
ExtensionInstallForceList	Control which extensions are installed silently

You can use HubsSidebarEnabled policy to control whether the sidebar is allowed or blocked in your organization.

Note: Blocking the sidebar will automatically block all sidebar apps from being enabled.

Open the group policy editor, go to Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge and then select Show Hubs Sidebar.

To block the sidebar and all sidebar apps, select Disabled. To allow the sidebar, select Enabled.

Block-specific sidebar apps in Microsoft Edge via GPO

You can use the ExtensionInstallBlockList policy to control which sidebar apps are blocked.

Note: During the rollout of Microsoft Edge Version 123.0.2420.53, the following sidebar app experiences are turned on by default for Enterprise customers: Search, Discover, Office.com, and Outlook.

Admins can use the following guidance to reconfigure the sidebar as desired for their organization. Use the following steps as a guide to block a sidebar app.

Open the group policy management editor.

Navigate to Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge > Extensions and then select Control which extensions cannot be installed.

Select Enabled. Click Show. Enter the extension ID of the sidebar app that you want to block. You can find Extension IDs for sidebar apps by going edge://sidebar-internals.

The Sidebar Internals JSON file includes a manifest for all sidebar apps, including an extension_id parameter for each app. You can use these values to configure the policy.

When adding multiple IDs use a separate row for each ID. Disabling the HubsSidebarEnabled policy will block all sidebar apps by default.

I hope you found this article on how to Remove clickable icons from the Edge browser very useful. Please feel free to leave a comment below.