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Microsoft has announced an upcoming change to the right-click menu in File Explorer that will hide AI actions from it whenever there are no AI actions that apply, or when the user has disabled AI actions in the system.
"If there are no available or enabled AI Actions, this section will no longer show in the context menu," reads a note in the changelog for the latest Windows 11 preview build. Hopefully, this change will begin rolling out for everyone early next year.
This is a change that many users have been asking for, especially those that aren't interested in using Microsoft's AI features that are built-in to Windows 11. More annoyingly, the AI actions menu appears for every file that you right-click on, even when there are no AI actions that apply.
With this change, that will no longer be the case. And the AI actions menu will also no longer appear if the user has outright disabled AI actions in the Windows Settings app, resulting in the right-click menu taking up less space on screen.
Microsoft recently announced that it was interested in cleaning up the right-click menu in File Explorer. Since Windows 11's debut, the new modern context menu has slowly become cluttered with excess options, most of which aren't ever wanted by the user. With Microsoft now hiding the AI actions menu when it's not applicable, that's one step towards cleaning up these menus.
In recent months, Microsoft appears to have started taking cleaning up and improving the polish of Windows 11 more seriously. It's already working on an improved dark mode for File Explorer, which will apply more consistently across legacy interfaces such as file deletion prompts and copy dialogs.
Now, we're getting a decluttered context menu and other quality of life improvements, which is very reassuring to see. It's also good to see Microsoft let us turn off some of these AI features and capabilities when we don't want them, even from appearing in the menu.
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