Over time, our computers accumulate more and more files and apps that, if left unchecked, can seriously impact the experience. This also applies to the context menu in Windows 11, as more and more apps register items displayed in it. These items are registered as shell extensions and adding more items will cause the menu to take much longer to load all of its contents. If you have many apps that create context menu entries, you may experience slow menu opening or even crashes and other issues.
Luckily, if you want to speed up your context menu, you can remove the entries you don't need from a central interface thanks to an app called ShellExView. Here's why you should use it.
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How it works
ShellExView is so much simpler
The way context menu entries are added is through the Windows Registry and you can try navigating through it Registry Editor In order to find and delete unwanted entries, this process is extremely cumbersome and time-consuming. ShellExView is really cool in that it groups all of your items into one easy-to-use (if somewhat dated) view where you can easily see and identify each entry.
In fact, ShellExView contains all kinds of shell extensions. However, if you want to focus on the context menu, you can sort the list by type to have all the context menu items together. ShellExView also makes it really easy to understand all types of context menus an item can appear in. Using Registry Editor would force you to jump through numerous sections to see the possible situations in which each item may appear. However, ShellExView has tabs that show exactly which part of File Explorer causes a particular item to appear. For example, some context menu items may only appear on the desktop. However, most of these are related to file extensions or folders, so you can see that here too.
It's also really easy to enable or disable a specific context menu entry. You can select one or more options, right-click, and then select Disable selected items. You can also re-enable certain elements if you regret your changes.
If you're in doubt, ShellExview also lets you easily search for the name of an entry to see what it's related to, making everything go very smoothly even for a relative newbie.
It just gets chaotic
A big reason for disabling context menu items is simply usability. If a ton of items appear every time you open a context menu, navigation becomes increasingly difficult. Tidying up unnecessary items allows you to focus on the things you actually use more often, so you can get things done faster.
Of course, another possible solution would be to uninstall the apps associated with these entries, but you may not always want to remove a specific app, you just don't want it in the Start menu. This makes it much easier to do that. In some cases I've even found items for apps that I had already uninstalled, so this may help clean up some entries that don't even work.
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Improved performance
There are not as many items to load
Finally, of course, comes the most important part: performance. The Windows context menu is notoriously not very fast and adding more shell extensions just makes things worse. As more and more entries need to be filled out, the menu takes much longer to load properly, which can impact your productivity.
Disabling unnecessary items is not only a visual improvement, but also reduces the workload on your PC, allowing the context menu to open much faster. In some cases, you can even fix crashes or other issues that may be caused by certain context menu items. This is all the more reason to try ShellExView and disable some items you don't think you need. There's not much of a downside considering you can always bring them back if you want them again.
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ShellExView is a great tool
There are many ways to improve your PC's performance and therefore your productivity, but ShellExView is a relatively obscure solution that you may not have thought of that can actually help. Removing items from your context menu will help you focus better and reduce loading times. Plus, it's much easier to use than searching for all of these entries in the Registry Editor and disabling or deleting them manually.
However, there are some limitations. For example, I couldn't find any entries created by Microsoft PowerToys. It's always a good idea to check individual apps as well, as they often offer options to disable context menu entries.