Don’t like the new tabs feature in File Explorer? You can turn it off. Follow these steps to disable tabs in File Explorer in Windows 11.
Microsoft’s last cumulative update finally included the long-requested “Tabs” feature in File Explorer. The new functionality, as expected, displays tabs on top of the File Explorer title bar and allows you to open folders in separate tabs in the same window. You can also move tabs for better organization as needed.
As useful as the Tabs feature is, it still lacks many basic features and has a long way to go. Not to mention, according to social media chatter, the tabs feature is somewhat buggy and, at the time of writing, makes the File Explorer quite slow.
If the new feature is causing problems or you don’t like it, you can disable File Explorer tabs with just a few clicks.
Without further ado, let me show you how to remove tabs from File Explorer in Windows 11.
Disable File Explorer tabs
File Explorer doesn’t have a native option to disable tabs. However, we can use a free and open-source application called ViveTool to get the job done. All you have to do is download the ViveTool package and run a couple of commands. Let me show you how.
- Get the ViveTool from GitHub.
- Extract the zip file to a folder.
- Open the extracted folder.
- Right-click inside the folder.
- Choose the “Open in Terminal” option.
- Run the below commands one after another.
.\vivetool.exe /disable /id:37634385.\vivetool.exe /disable /id:36354489 - Close the Terminal window.
- Reboot Windows.
- With that, tabs are disabled in File Explorer.
ViveTool download link: https://github.com/thebookisclosed/File Explorer
Steps with more details:
First, head to the official ViveTool GitHub page and download the zip package. After downloading, right-click the zip file and choose “Extract all.”
Click the “Extract” button to extract the zip file to a separate folder in the same directory.
After extracting, open the extracted folder. Next, right-click inside the folder and choose the “Open in Terminal” option.
The above action will open the folder in the terminal window. Run the below commands one after another.
.\vivetool.exe /disable /id:37634385
.\vivetool.exe /disable /id:36354489
After successfully running the two commands, close the terminal window and reboot the computer. After rebooting, you will no longer see tabs in File Explorer.
If you want, you can enable tabs in File Explorer using the same ViveTool application. I’ve already written a detailed guide on how to do it. Follow the link.
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That is all. It is that simple to disable File Explorer tabs.
I hope this simple and easy Windows how-to guide helped you.
If you are stuck or need some help, send an email, and I will try to help as much as possible.
