How to disable Search Highlights in Windows 11/10

In this post, we will show you how to turn off or disable Search Highlights or Suggestions in Windows 11 or Windows 10 via Context Menu, Settings, Registry or Group Policy Editor. Windows Search Highlights offer a look at interesting news items and allow you to discover content.

KB5014668 Update introduces this Search Highlights on your Windows system. Once this update is installed, to see search highlights in Windows 11, simply click or tap on the Search icon on your taskbar. If you do not want this feature, you can disable it.

Disable Search Highlights in Windows 11

To disable Search Highlights & Suggestions in Windows 11 follow these steps:

1. Open Windows 11 Settings
2. Click on Privacy & security settings
3. Locate Windows Permissions
4. Under it, click on Search Permissions
5. Now scroll down to More settings at the bottom
6. Turn the toggle for Show search highlights to Off position.

Disable Search Highlights in Windows 10

To disable Search Highlights in Windows 10 follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the Windows 10 Taskbar
2. Hover over the Search menu in the context menu
3. Uncheck Show search highlights.

This will makes Windows 11/10 stop showing search highlights and content in the Search box.

You can also use Registry or Group Policy Editor to completely turn off this feature

Turn off Search Highlights & Suggestions using Registry Editor in Windows 11/10

Next up, let us see how you can do the same using the Registry Editor. So, first of all, open Registry Editor. You will get UAC prompt asking you to confirm your actions, so, click on Yes. Once the editor is launched, go to the following location.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SearchSettings

Look for IsDynamicSearchBoxEnabled, double-click on it to open, and set the Value Data to 0. Finally, you may have to restart your system. Once you do that, Bing’s image won’t pop up in the search bar.

To enable it, go to the same location in Registry Editor, and change the Value Data of IsDynamicSearchBoxEnabled to 1.

Diable Search Highlights & Suggestions using Group Policy Editor in Windows 11/10

You can also edit a policy on your computer to remove the image, all you have to do is disable Search Highlights and you will be good to go. Just follow the prescribed steps to do the same.

Open Group Policy Editor by searching it out of the Start Menu.

Go to the following location.

Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Search

Look for Allow search highlights.

Double-click on the policy, select Disabled and click Apply > Ok.

• These are the supported values in Windows 11:
  • Not Configured/ Enabled (default) – Enabling or not configuring this setting turns on search highlights in the start menu search box and in search home.
  • Disabled – Disabling this setting turns off search highlights in the start menu search box and in search home.
• These are the supported values in Windows 10:
  • Not Configured/ Enabled (default) – Enabling or not configuring this setting turns on search highlights in the taskbar search box and in search home.
  • Disabled – Disabling this setting turns off search highlights in the taskbar search box and in search home.

This will do the job for you.

To get the feature back, all you have to do is enable Allow search highlights from the Group Policy Editor.

Hope this helps.

How do I get rid of the Search Bar image on Windows 10?

To remove Bing Image from the Taskbar Search Bar in Windows 10, we need to disable Search Highlights, you have to follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the empty space of the Taskbar.
2. Go to Search.
3. Uncheck Show search highlights.

How do I turn off or on Search Highlights in Windows 11?

You can turn Search Highlights On or Off in Windows 11 via Settings or by using the Registry or Group Policy Editor. This tutorial will show you how to do it the right way.