Add, Remove, Edit Context Menu items in Windows 7 / 8

The Right Click Menu or the Context Menu is the menu, which appears, when you right-click on the desktop or a file or folder in Windows. This menu gives you added functionality by offering you actions you can take with the item. Most programs like to stuff their commands in this menu. While they can be useful, the problem is that even when you uninstall the programs, they fail to remove the respective context menu item, making the menu slow and appear cluttered.

Edit Windows Context Menu

If you wish to reduce this clutter or remove items from this menu which are no longer useful, you can do so. Most programs will offer the explorer integration in their Settings, and if you look around, you may be able to find it and disable the explorer context-menu integration. If not, you will have to edit the registry or use a third-party freeware.

Using Registry Editor

Run regedit to open the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Hereyou need to simply delete the keys you don’t want. There are other registry locations too where this data may be stored. To know more about the other location, please refer this post on mvps.org.

Context Menu Editors

You can also use 3rd-party freeware context menu editors to remove context menu items, or to add or edit them..

1) Some of our following freeware will help you edit the right-click context menu easily.

Ultimate Windows Customizer, Right-Click Extender for Windows and Context Menu Editor for Windows are freeware releases from the Windows Cluband you may want to check them out.

2) ContextEdit will allow you easily control the items that appear on your context menu of Windows Explorer.

The context menu often contains numerous rarely-used commands. These commands come from one of two places: shell commands stored within the system Registry, and context menu handlers.

3) You can also try ShellExtView or  ShellMenuView. They are small utilities that display the list of static menu items that appear in the context menu when you right-click a file/folder in Windows Explorer, and allow you to easily disable or edit unwanted menu items.

4) File Menu Tools (link removed) lets you add, delete & customize the context menu items of the Windows Explorer – but it NOW comes bundled with a lot of crapware, according to the comments below.

It lets configure the following aspects:

• Add some build-in utilities in order to do operations over files and folders.
• Add customized commands which let run external applications, copy/move to a specific folder or delete specific file types.
• Configure the “Sends to…” sub menu”.
• Enable/disable the commands which are added by other applications to the context menu and much more !

5] If you are you looking for a fast and easy way to clean up your Window Explorer and Internet Explorer right-click context menu, try MenuMaid.

Simply download the portable freeware app MenuMaid and uncheck the items you don’t want to show up. It also lets you disable or remove items from the Internet Explorer context menu. If you want to restore them, check them again. Read this post if you want to remove items from the “New” Context Menu.