The Post-Click Animation
Windows 10 employs several micro-animations to confirm user interactions. One of these is controlled by the “Fade out menu items after clicking” setting. When you open a context menu (by right-clicking) or drop down a menu in an application, and you click on a specific item, that item doesn’t just instantly vanish. Instead, the OS briefly highlights your selection and then smoothly fades the entire menu into transparency before it completely disappears.
While this fading effect provides a satisfying visual confirmation that your click registered, it artificially delays the visual feedback loop. You have to wait a fraction of a second for the menu to disappear before you can clearly see the underlying window or desktop again. For power users executing rapid sequences of clicks, or on systems where rendering transparency causes slight graphical stutter, this forced delay makes the operating system feel slower than it actually is. To make your interactions feel instantaneous, you should disable this fade-out effect.
How to Turn Off Menu Click Fading
You can force menus to disappear instantly upon clicking via the advanced system performance settings.
- Click the Start button and type Advanced system settings.
- Select View advanced system settings from the search results. This directly opens the System Properties window to the Advanced tab.
- Under the Performance section near the top, click the Settings… button.
- A new “Performance Options” window will open. Ensure you are on the Visual Effects tab.
- Scroll through the list of visual effects and locate the checkbox labelled Fade out menu items after clicking.
- Click the checkbox to remove the checkmark.
- Click Apply, and then click OK.
From now on, the moment you click an item in a menu, the menu will instantly snap out of existence, providing a much crisper, faster computing experience.