Hide unused libraries in Windows Explorer

The Libraries function in Windows
7 help in structuring data. But a lot
of users still prefer the conventional
folder structure.



In such a case, you can hide
the libraries and thus make space for
displaying more folders. For this, right
click the fi rst library ‘Pictures’ and select
the context command ‘Do not display
in navigation fi eld’. Repeat this step for
all other unused libraries. In order to
display individual entries again, click
‘Libraries’ in Explorer. Then right click the
desired element and select the context
command ‘Display in navigation fi eld’.
The main entry ‘Libraries’ cannot be
deleted so easily. To do this, a detour

Reduce clutter by hiding unnecessary Library

targets from the Explorer pane.

via the registry is necessary. Type
‘regedit’ in the search fi eld of the Start
menu, press Enter, and confi rm the
user account control prompt by clicking
‘Yes’. Now navigate to the key ‘HKEY_
LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Desktop\NameSpace’. Then select the
sub-key ‘{O31E48257B94-4dc3-B131-
E946B44C8DD5}’ and open ‘File | Export’.
Then select a safe storage location, enter
a fi le name such as ‘Explorerlibraries’
and click ‘Save’. This is to back up the
entry. Then simply delete the subkey
in the Registry Editor and confi rm with
‘Yes’. Now close the registry and restart
Windows Explorer. A system restart is
not required.
In order to display the libraries again,
double click the exported REG fi le and
confi rm the requests for user account
control and adding values into the
registry with ‘Yes’. The libraries will be
visible once again the next time you start
Explorer.