The last time I right-clicked on a file, I was annoyed by the fact that it took 2 full seconds to load the menu. Why? Well because I had installed so many different applications on my computer that a couple of them added themselves to my right click context menu automatically!

Some program ask you if you want to option and others do not. Now granted, I probably said yes a couple of times, thinking how useful it would be to have that in my right-click menu, but there are still some I don’t even use!

If you’re looking for a way to remove applications from right click menu for files and folders, you can do it yourself with a little bit of registry hacking. First, take a look at my ridiculously long right click menu:

Now that’s long!!! Too long! There’s Dreamweaver, Notepad, anti-virus, Pinky basket, PKZIP, SmartFTP, and PowerISO! Whew! So how can we customize the menu to something more manageable?

First, make sure to back up your registry in case something gets messed up. Now open the registry editor by going to Start, then Run and then typing in regedit.

Edit right click menu for files

There is a right-click menu for files and another for folders. To get to the one for files, head over to this registry key.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\

You should now see a listing like this:

All the folders listed under ContextMenuHandlers are applications that show up when you right click on a file in Windows. You can either delete the folder to remove the option or simply disable the folder, which is better in case you want to bring it back later on.

You can disable an application by clicking on the folder in the left pane and then right-clicking on the key value in the right pane and choosing “Modify“.

All you need to do is add a minus (-) in front of the key value like shown below:

Click OK, then the refresh button at the top and then try right-clicking on the file! The program should now be gone from the context menu.

Edit right click menu for Folders

You can follow the same steps as shown above for folders also, it’s just a different registry path. In order to edit the menu options for right clicking on folders, go here:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\

You’ll have to scroll quite a bit, but once you get there, it should look something like this:

Again, you can either delete the folders under ContextMenuHandlers or you can simplt disable them by editing the key and putting a - in front of the value. Simple as that and works like a charm!