When you click the Search box on the Windows 11 taskbar (or press Windows Key + S), the menu that appears is often cluttered with “Search Highlights.” These are daily, rotating images, historical facts, trending news articles, and Bing search suggestions injected directly into your local search interface.
If you only use the Search menu to find local files or launch installed applications, these daily pictures and news feeds are incredibly distracting and slow down the menu’s rendering speed. If you want a clean, minimalist, and strictly local search experience, you can permanently disable the Search Highlights feature.
How to Remove Search Highlights in Windows 11
You can turn off the Bing-powered highlights directly from the Windows 11 Settings app.
- Click the Start button and select the gear icon to open Settings.
- In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Privacy & security.
- Scroll down the right side of the screen until you find the “Windows permissions” section.
- Click on Search permissions.
- Scroll all the way to the bottom of this new page to find the “More settings” section.
- Look for the toggle switch labelled Show search highlights.
- Click the toggle switch to turn it completely Off.
The change takes effect immediately. The next time you open the Windows Search menu, the colorful daily images and trending Bing news will be gone. The right side of the search panel will now only display your most recently used applications and local search history.