Cortana, Microsoft’s supremely useful digital assistant, is a highlight Windows 10 feature. It brings you any information you want like searching your files, to checking the weather, to reminding you about an upcoming meeting etc. Most users will probably find value in Cortana’s capabilities, but one thing that many users won’t like is just how much space the Cortana search bar takes up in the Windows 10 taskbar.
The search box will be enabled by default when you fire up Windows 10 for the first time. To make it go away, follow these steps:
Hiding Cortana Search Box
1. Right Click anywhere on Taskbar.
2. Select Cortana.
3. Now there are three options- If you select “Show Search Icon” the large search box will be changed to small Cortana logo. This will help you to get more space in Taskbar.
4. If you’d prefer to hide Cortana entirely, Select Hidden.
This removes Cortana’s presence from the Windows 10 taskbar entirely, but Cortana will still run in the background for things like reminders and notifications.
Disable Cortana in Windows 10
Microsoft actually makes the process pretty simple.
1. Open Cortana and go to Notebook->Settings. Or Search for “Cortana & Search Settings” in the search bar.
2. In the Settings, disable all the toggle says “Cortana can give you suggestions, ideas, reminders, alerts, and more“.
When you do so, you’ll see that the Cortana icon in your taskbar changes to a magnifying glass. This indicates that Cortana has been disabled and that you now have access only to the basic Windows 10 search feature
