On Windows 11, the File Explorer shows the navigation pane on the left sidebar. The navigation pane shows all the folders including your drives, cloud storage, network location, home, and pinned folders. While the navigation pane makes moving between folders and drives easy, there might be situations where you need to hide it. For example, you need to increase the available screen real estate, find the navigation pane distracting, etc. Whatever the reason, on Windows 11, you can hide or remove the navigation pane in File Explorer with just a couple of clicks.
In this quick and easy tutorial, I will show you how to hide the File Explorer navigation pane on Windows 11. Let’s get started.
Hide Navigation Pane in File Explorer on Windows 11
- Press “Windows key + E” to open File Explorer.
- Click the “View” button on the top bar.
- Select the “Show” option.
- Uncheck the “Navigation Pane” option to hide the navigation pane.
- With that, the navigation pane is hidden immediately.
- To show the navigation pane, select “Show > Navigation Pane“.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
You can show or hide the navigation pane using the File Explorer’s “View” options. To do that, open the File Explorer by pressing the “Windows key + E” shortcut.
Hide navigation pane:
In the File Explorer window, click the “View” button, select “Show“, and uncheck the “Navigation Pane” option.
As soon as you do that, Windows hides the navigation pane in File Explorer.
Show navigation pane:
Click the “View” button on the top bar of the File Explorer window and select the “Show > Navigation Pane” option. When the navigation pane is enabled, you will see a small check mark before the “Navigation Pane” name.
That is all. It is that simple to hide the navigation pane in File Explorer on Windows 11.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to help.
