What is the “Show smart actions” Menu?
As part of its ongoing integration of smart workspace features, Google Docs occasionally displays a small, floating “hover menu” when you select certain types of text, highlight names, or interact with dates. These “smart actions” suggest quick tasks, such as creating a calendar event, assigning a task, or pulling up contact information. While these features are intended to save time for collaborative teams, they can be highly distracting if you are simply trying to write, edit, or copy text without constant pop-up interruptions. If you prefer a cleaner, distraction-free writing environment, you can disable these hover menus entirely.
How to Turn Off Smart Actions in Google Docs
The setting to disable this feature is located within the main Google Docs preferences menu.
- Open a document in Google Docs on your web browser.
- Click on Tools in the top menu bar.
- Select Preferences from the dropdown menu.
- In the Preferences dialog box, ensure you are on the General tab (this is usually the default).
- Look down the list of checkboxes for the option labeled “Show smart actions”.
- Uncheck the box next to this option.
- Click the blue OK button at the bottom of the window to save your changes.
What Changes After Disabling?
Once you uncheck this box, the small, pill-shaped pop-up menus that appear above or below selected text will stop triggering. You can now highlight text, select dates, and click on names without the interface attempting to predict your next action. If you ever need to use those collaboration features, you can still access them manually by right-clicking the text and selecting the appropriate option from the standard context menu, keeping your workspace uncluttered while maintaining full functionality.