Context menu is a menu that appears when you perform a right-click on Windows 10 or other Windows versions. The number of items available on the context menu is not the same on each PC. It depends on the number of apps you have. The more apps you have, the more options available on the context menu as well. If you think that context menu displays too many items, in which make it looks cluttered, you can remove the ones you never use.

Sometimes, some apps failed to remove its item from the context menu even if you have removed the concerned app. In general, there are two ways to remove an item from the context menu: by editing the Windows Registry and using a third party app. In this article, we will show you how to remove an item from context menu using the first method.

Since Registry is sensitive enough, make sure to backup it first before making any change.

Removing context menu items via Registry

To get started, open the Registry Editor. You can do that by pressing the Ctrl+R keys on keyboard and type regedit on the Run dialog box and hit enter.

You will need a little effort to find the context menu items you want to remove because they are located on the different locations on Windows Registry. You can find them on one of the following locations.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*\shell

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFileSystemObjects\ShellEx

You can use the left panel to go to the paths above.

On this example, we are going to remove a context menu item from the Droplr app.

On our case, the Registry key that shows Droplr context menu item is located on the following path.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Droplr

Once you found the key, you can simply delete it and the menu item handled by this key will disappear from the context menu. Right-click and select Delete to delete the key.

There is an additional option you can take. Instead of deleting the key, in which will remove the item on the context menu, you can add a new string to disable the menu item. This option allows you to get the menu item back in case you change your mind.

To add a new string, select the key you want to disable on the left panel. Click the Edit menu and select New -> String Value.

Name the string value “LegacyDisable”.

As soon as you create the LegacyDisable value, the change should be immediate. Try to right-click a file or folder on File Explorer and you should not see the menu item anymore.

If you think that editing Registry is too risky since you haven’t familiarized, you might want to use a third party app instead. NirSoft is one of the utility app you can use in this case.