Windows includes a bunch of options in that context menu by default, and that list grows as you install more apps. It sometimes seems like every app is fighting for a piece of your context menu and most of us don’t even use half of them. We’re going to show you how you can remove items by editing your Registry, as well as an easier cleanup method using a couple of free third-party apps. We’ll also point you toward how to add some more useful commands. Without too much effort, you can take your context menu from being cluttered and only mostly useful to being streamlined and efficient. Let’s get started. The Hard Way: Remove Items from the Context Menu by Editing the Registry If you want to clean things up the truly geeky way, you can do from Registry Editor without the need for third-party software.

1. Change Context Menu Windows 10
2. Customize Windows Context Menu

Feb 27, 2008 A short tutorial on how to customize the the Micrsoft Vista desktop context menu (right click menu). How add context menu item to Windows Explorer for folders. Creating/writing custom context menu. Customize Desktop Context Menu in Windows Vista.

We’ll get to the easier tools a bit later, but we think it helps when using those tools to understand how this stuff is handled in the Registry. Standard warning: Registry Editor is a powerful tool and misusing it can render your system unstable or even inoperable. If you’ve never worked with it before, consider reading about before you get started. And definitely (and!) before making changes. This is especially true when following the guidelines in this article, because you’ll end up having to do a little hunting around to find the context menu entries that mean something to you. Unfortunately, the items populating your context menu are not all located in the same place in the Registry.

You can find most of the context menu items used for both files and folders by drilling down to one of the following keys in the navigation pane on the left: HKEYCLASSESROOT. shell HKEYCLASSESROOT.

shellex ContextMenuHandlers HKEYCLASSESROOT AllFileSystemObjects ShellEx You’ll find context menu items specific to just folders in one of these keys instead: HKEYCLASSESROOT Directory shell HKEYCLASSESROOT Directory shellex ContextMenuHandlers. You’ll need to handle the context menu items found in these locations a bit differently, so keep reading and we’ll explain how. For now, you might find it handy to locate each of those locations in the Registry and so that they’re easier to browse through later. Remove “Shell” Items Let’s take a look at one item as an example. I use the video player. When I installed it, VLC added a context menu item named “Add to VLC media player’s Playlist.” I never use that and would rather it not be on my context menu.

Here’s how we get rid of that menu item. In Registry Editor, drill down to the following key: HKEYCLASSESROOT Directory shell AddtoPlaylistVLC I spotted the AddtoPlaylistVLC key while browsing through the shell key looking for items to remove. Items under the regular shell key are usually really easy to spot and deal with. We have a few options on how to handle this. We could just delete that AddToPlaylistVLC key entirely, and that would remove the item from the context menu. However, unless you back up your Registry—or export the key first and keep up with the REG file—it won’t be easy to get back if you change your mind. The second option is to disable the key instead of deleting it.

To do that, just right-click the AddToPlaylistVLC key—or whatever key you’re working with—and choose New String Value. Name the new string value “LegacyDisable.” As soon as you create the LegacyDisable value, the change should be immediate. Right-click a file or folder in File Explorer and we can see that the “Add to VLC media player’s Playlist” item has been removed from the context menu. You also have a third option.

If you occasionally use a menu item, but don’t want it cluttering up your regular context menu, you can hide it away on the extended context menu you see only when you hold Shift while right-clicking a file or folder. To do this, right-click the AddToPlaylistVLC key—or whatever key you’re working with—and choose New String Value. Name the new string value “Extended.” Now, it will only appear if you right-click on a folder while holding Shift. Remove “Shellex” Items You probably noticed that some of the common Registry keys we listed at the top of this section have “shellex” (Shell Extension) in the name instead of just “shell”.

You’ll need to handle those types of keys just a bit differently. As our example, we’ll head down to one of those keys we mentioned: HKEYCLASSESROOT Directory shellex ContextMenuHandlers The shellex items will be a little tougher to decipher, but you can usually figure out an item by the key name on the left. Here, we’re going to be working with the DropboxExt key inside the ContextMenuHandlers key. When Dropbox is installed, it adds a “Move to Dropbox” command to the context menu. Because I’m more of a drag and dropper, I’ve never once used that command, and I’m going to get rid of it.

You can’t use the tricks with the LegacyDisable and Extended string values we described above with shellex items. You could still delete the whole DropboxExt key to remove it from the context menu (and be sure to back the key up if you do), but there is a simple way to disable it. Just select the key on the left and then double-click the (Default) value inside that key to open its properties window. On the properties window, in the “Value data” box, just modify the value that’s already there by putting a few dashes in front of it, being careful not to delete any of the existing value.

That way, if you change your mind, you can just go back in and remove the dashes. When you’re done, click “OK.” The change will be immediate, so go right-click something in File Explorer and make sure the command is gone. Unfortunately, when it comes to shellex items, there’s no way to hide them on the Extended context menu the way you can with shell items. You can only delete or disable them. Explore Other Locations by File Type If you want to remove context menu items that you only see when you right-click specific types of files, you can do that, too. These items are stored elswhere than the common locations we’ve already looked.

To find them, you’ll need to first locate the file extension key by looking under HKEYCLASSESROOT for that extension, which in turn will tell you the name of the key that you need to look for. Just as an example, say you wanted to remove the menu item for opening an Excel document (XLSX) in Excel when you right-click on it. Why would you want to do this? Well, you probably wouldn’t, but it’s an easy example to look at here.

Other applications may add different types of commands you don’t need. You’d start by taking a look at the following Registry key for the XLSX extension: HKEYCLASSESROOT.xlsx The data column for the (Default) shell key lets you know that the actual type of file is “Excel.Sheet.12.” Now, you can browse to that extensions key: HKEYCLASSESROOT Excel.Sheet.12 shell And now that you’ve located the correct shell key, you can use the same techniques we described in the previous section on “shell” items to delete, disable, or hide the item on the Extended context menu. Remember the LegacyDisable and Extended string values? Yep, those work here, too. The Easy Way: Remove Items from the Context Menu with NirSoft Utilities So, now that you know how to do things the hard way, let’s take a look at the easy way.

Instead of editing the Registry, you can download two tools from NirSoft to clean up your context menu. Why two tools? Because one of them handles regular shell items and one handles shellex items. They are both much easier to use than editing the Registry, but the behind-the-scenes understanding of how these things are handled in the Registry will give you a leg up in sorting through all the items these tools display. Start by downloading both the tools.

The first tool is, which handles regular shell items. The second tool is, which handles shellex items. Scroll down toward the bottom of both those pages to find the download links. The tools both work with pretty much any version of Windows from 98 all the way through 10. You will need to grab either the 32-bit or 64-bit version, depending on whether you’re. The first tool we’ll check out is ShellMenuView, which allows us to manage all of those regular shell items with an easy to use interface. After downloading and extracting the tool, double-click the EXE file to run it.

It’s a portable tool, so there’s no installation. In the ShellMenuView window, just browse down the list until you find the item you want to disable.

You can only disable items with these tools—not delete them or hide them on the Extended context menu. And by the way, these tools disable items by creating a LegacyDisable string value inside the appropriate key—just like we did when we edited the Registry manually. When you find the item you’re looking for, click the “Disable” button on the toolbar (the red light). Another benefit of using these tools is that you can select multiple items and then disable them all at once. In our example, we’re disabling the “Add to VLC media player’s Playlist” item only when you right-click a folder (the same example we used in the Registry section previously), but we could easily select all of the “Add to VLC media player’s Playlist” items and then click “Disable” to remove that command from the context menu of all supported file types as well.

Change Context Menu Windows 10

When you’re done removing shell items, the next step is to fire up the ShellExView tool and remove shellex items. This one works the exactly the same way as the first tool. Just select one or more items and then click the “Disable” button to remove the items from your context menu. How to Remove Additional Items from the Context Menu There are a couple of context menu items you may have noticed that neither the NirSoft tools nor the regular Registry methods we covered address: namely, the items you find on the “Open With” and “Send To” submenus. The “Open With” menu is a handy feature when you open files with multiple programs. Whenever you open a file with a particular program, that program gets added to the “Open With” menu for that type of file. If you’ve ever accidentally opened a file with the wrong program or with a program you don’t use any more, though, you’ve probably seen that menu get cluttered over time. Fortunately, we have a complete set of instructions to guide you through.

The “Send To” menu is one of those features that people tend to either love and use all the time or just never even bother with. When you install Windows, some items are added to the “Send To” menu by default. Others get added over time as you install different apps. If you’ve ever wished you could declutter that menu, it’s your lucky day!

We’ve got one guide for and another guide if you’d like to altogether. Of course, we wouldn’t leave you without any specific suggestions for fun things to add to your context menu.

And we’ve covered a bunch of them. For example, you could add any of the following to your menu:. So, have fun and get creative! We admit, it’s a good amount of information to absorb just to change a menu that you’ve probably grown used to, but you might be surprised at how much more pleasant it is using a nice, clean context menu that has commands you’ll actually use. So what are you waiting for?

Time to get started making those context menus more useful!

Looking for a free program to customize or edit the right-click context menu for the desktop or for Explorer in Windows? One of the main reasons I think people use Windows over Mac is because right clicking on something is more natural in Windows.

So why not supercharge the right-click menu to make it even more useful than it already is? In this article, I’ll cover a couple of really useful right-click context menu editors that I use all the time. These extra menu options can help you navigate Windows faster and perform file operations more easily.

File Menu Tools is a nifty little app that makes it super easy to add a bunch of more options to the context menu. You can add built-in utilities to the context menu that perform certain operations over files and folders. Basically, it just adds one item to the main right-click menu and that one item can then be customized to have as many or as few of the pre-configured options you choose. Here are a couple of other things you can do with FileMenu Tools that make working in Explorer more efficient:.

Ability to add customized commands to the context menu which let you run external applications, copy/move to a specific folder, or delete files by specific file type, etc. Ability to configure the Send To submenu option in Explorer. Ability to enable/disable commands on the context menu that were added by other applications. I really like FileMenu Tools because it allows you to accomplish some pretty complicated tasks that would be very tedious to complete without it! Here are some of the options you can add to the context menu. Synchronize Folders – Synchronizes two folders.

It is possible configure the synchronization type (unidirectional, bidirectional, etc.) and the file types which you want to have synchronized. Extended Delete – Need to delete all the PDFs on your immediately? This item deletes recursively specific file types from a folder. The file types are specified with wildcards, for example:.txt,.t??, etc. Split and Join File – Splits the selected file into various parts and then rejoins the parts which were previously split. If you’re looking for a file splitter, you can get that plus a ton more features using this program! If you’re looking for just a, you can check out a post I wrote a while back.

Copy Name – I like this utility as it copies to the clipboard the name of the all selected elements. So if you want to get a list of all files in a folder into a text file, you can simply select them, right-click and choose Copy Name. Change Time – Changes the creation time, the last access time, and the last write time of the selected elements. If a folder is selected, it is possible change the time recursively for all files and folders underneath. Size of Folders – Displays the size of the folders. Quickly see how large a folder is using this utility.

Shred Files – Lets you shred the selected files definitely so it is impossible to recover the files with advanced recovering tools. If you don’t need all those options in the right-click context menu, you can simply uncheck them in the program interface. It’s best to first play around with each one and see whether you’ll actually use it or not. I only have about 5 of the 30 or 40 options they include, but I use those 5 quite often.

Also, you can customize the Send To menu and add/remove commands from other apps via the other tabs as shown below. Overall, it’s a great freeware application that has a ton of features. If you’re looking for a way to customize the right-click menu in Explorer, then this is the ultimate tool for that purpose! It basically combines many smaller apps into one integrated all-in-one utility! Right-Click Context Menu Adder File Menu Tools is great, but it still doesn’t let you add items directly to the right-click menu.

Instead, it creates its own main menu item and then adds all the other options in the sub-menu. This is not necessarily a bad thing because I’ve seen that it never causes a performance problem when right-clicking. The programs that add directly to the context menu can sometimes make it really slow, especially if you add a bunch of new menu items.

Anyway, is a nice utility for customizing the main right-click menu in Windows. Just download it and run the program, which thankfully doesn’t even require an install. Whereas File Menu Tools is a much more user-friendly tool, Context Menu Adder is all about doing it yourself. There are no pre-configured options or options to choose from. You have to decide what type of item you want to add to the context menu (program, folder, web address or other), choose your options and then add it. I use this particular tool for the ability to add folders and websites mostly. I have found that really handy since I tend to open the same set of folders in Explorer all the time and this saves me a bunch of time.

Customize Windows Context Menu

When adding a program, you can choose from an EXE, MSI or batch file. If you have scripts that you like to run on your computer, you can add them to the context menu for easy access. Other than that, you simply choose the icon, which is normally automatically pulled from the EXE, choose the position and choose the text you want to show up in the context menu. You also have an option to only show your new options when you press the SHIFT key and then right click. I found this feature to be really useful as it doesn’t clutter up your right-click menu normally, but only when you need it. Lastly, you choose whether you want it to appear only on the desktop context menu or on that and the folders context menu.

If you choose the second option, whenever you right-click on an empty space in Explorer, you’ll see the menu. Here I have added a random folder and IE to my right-click menu, one at the bottom and one at the top. If you want to remove anything, just click on the second tab and you’ll be able to get rid of anything you added to the context menu. Other than that, there aren’t really any other options or features to the program. It works well for what it does and I actually use it in combination with File Menu Tools, since they kind of let you do different things with the context menu. Easy Context Menu Another program that I like to recommend to friends is.

It’s got a very simple interface where you basically just check everything that you want for the different context menus. What I like about this program is that it really breaks the options down by pretty much every type of context menu that exists on the system.

You can add something to just the desktop right-click, to My Computer right-click, to only a folder right-click, etc. So here’s how it works. Find the context menu you want to edit, then check the boxes you for the menu items you want to add and then click on the little mouse button at the top with the green plus sign. That will apply the changes to the registry.

When you have done that, click on Tools at the top and click on Restart Windows Explorer. Once you restart Explorer, you will see the changes appear immediately when you right-click. The only other thing you have to understand is the way the three columns work. Icon will simply display an icon next to the menu item in the context menu.

Shift + Click will either be enabled or disabled. If enabled, you’ll only see the item when you press and hold the SHIFT key. Lastly, the position is where you want the menu item to appear. You can change these three options for each item listed by select it and then clicking on Edit the top. You’ll see sections for Use Icon, No Icon, Enable Shift, Disable Shift, Position, etc.

Also, active means the item is checked whereas passive means it’s simply unchecked. Thi is kind of an odd setting so that’s why I mentioned it here.

So hopefully one of these three tools will help you configure your right-click context menu exactly the way you want. If you have another tool that does a better job, let us know in the comments.