Subscribe to How-To Geek

Recommended: Click Here to Run a Free Scan for Common PC Errors   [Sponsored Link]

Disable the "Send To" Folder on the Windows Explorer Context Menu

After writing the article about adding Notepad to the context menu I noticed all the comments from users that prefer to use a shortcut in the Send To menu, which got me thinking… I wonder if you can disable the Send To folder?

Of course you can easily disable it… naturally it's a registry hack, so standard disclaimers apply.

image 

Manual Registry Hack

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then navigate down to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Send To

image

Find the (Default) value on the left, double-click on it and remove the text from the value, leaving it blank. The change will be immediate.

Restore Send To Menu

Change the value of the registry key back to this:

{7BA4C740-9E81-11CF-99D3-00AA004AE837}

Download Registry Hack

Just extract and double-click on the DisableSendTo.reg file to enter the information into the registry. To restore, use the RestoreSendTo.reg file instead.

Download DisableSendTo Registry Hack

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 02/6/08 and tagged with: Windows Vista, Desktop Customization

Comments (3)

  1. ExitRitual

    That's really handy!
    I always find that particular menu slow to load, especially when i accidentally mouse-over it…

    What'd be even more useful is if we could have a tweak that would replace the 'send to' menu with a single entry of our choice, say, 'send to desktop' or a specified location.

  2. dcj2

    Here's one of my favorite "Send To" tweaks. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get people on the network to refrain from emailing attachments to each other. So I set up hidden shared folders for each user on a server, then set the rights so everyone could write to the folder, but only the owner could list/read. Then I created an alphabetical list of the "Inboxes" and pushed it out vie GPO to everyone's, "Send To" submenu. Now when someone wants to send a file (or files), they right-click the file, Send To, scroll to the persons name, and click. So much easier than file attachments, keeps the load off the mail server, etc. It was a very popular solution.

  3. Andy

    under the same heading in the registry (ContextMenuHandlers), there are other keys, though they don't have obvious names like 'send to' does. can you share how to get rid of (or maybe even edit in our own … ya, i know, that would end up being a long post) other context menu items we wish to rid our UIs of?

    thanks for this tip, geek. i've never had a use for send to…


Leave a Comment




Leave your friendly comment here. If you have a computer help question, leave it on the forums instead.

Note: Your comment may not show up immediately on the site.

Copyright © 2006-2008 HowToGeek.com. All Rights Reserved.