[Article] How to enable the Microsoft Edge Sidebar

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In early 2022, the Edge team started testing a new feature, the Sidebar. It appeared only sporadically for some users of preview versions, but it wasn't until September 2022 that it was released to the Stable channel. It is usual with feature introductions for the roll-out to be gradual, so not every user will see the new one; the process might take several weeks or even months. According to this blog post, Sidebar is currently only available in English language markets. This article may help adventurous and impatient users who haven't yet seen it to start using the sidebar.

Overview

The Edge sidebar is intended to bring things to the user's fingertips that would normally involve leaving the web page being viewed. Sadly, there are two other apparently similar features being tested at the same time: the Edge bar, and Sidebar search. To avoid confusion, the picture shows the sidebar this article refers to, at the right-hand side of the Edge window. This screenshot was taken from the stable release, Edge v. 105.0.1343.53 on Windows 11 Pro 21H2. What content is available varies considerably, and will probably change as the feature matures. The screenshot shows a likely selection of apps and sites in the stable channel: Bing search, Discover (background information about the active page), Shopping, Tools (including a world clock and calculator, for example), games, Office, email and YouTube.

For those lucky enough to have the feature, the sidebar options are at ***⋯ ***(Settings and more) > Settings > Sidebar. [See Monkey57's comment below for details - thanks, Monkey57 and HumbleFarmer 🙇‍♂️] Some users, though, have noticed that the settings don't appear to do anything. There is also a keyboard shortcut to show or hide the sidebar: Ctrl-Shift-/. Again, for some users, this doesn't do anything.

For those who don't have the option, or for whom it doesn't work, there is a group policy that allows administrators to enable or disable the sidebar. This policy is simply an addition to the Windows registry that is read by Edge on launch. This has been tested on Windows 10 and 11 and appears to work. A Windows command that will make the addition to the registry is given below. It may not work if the sidebar hasn't been made available in your locale.

Whether the sidebar icons are displayed in colour or monochrome depends on the applied theme. To see the pretty ones. switch to the Default theme at ⋯ (Settings and more) > Settings > AppearanceCaveats

Editing the Windows registry can be risky, although using the command as given here is harmless. Nevertheless, you have been warned.

The command given below will make the registry entry for the current Windows user only. Other users of the same computer will not be affected by it. It will be possible to toggle the sidebar on and off in Edge's settings or by using Ctrl-Shift-/.

If Edge detects any entry at all in its policy registry, it will cause a message like Your browser is managed by your organization to be displayed at the top of settings pages and at the foot of the ⋯ (Settings and more) menu. This message has no significance other than indicating that Edge has detected the presence of a policy entry in the registry, but see the next paragraph.

Some settings may not be available in managed browsers, for example at Settings > Privacy, search and services > Security, the option to Use secure DNS to specify how to lookup the network address for websites may be unavailable.

The slider on the Appearance settings page referred to earlier will have a briefcase icon (indicating 'management') next to it. Hovering the mouse pointer over the icon will show what it means.

Make the addition to the registry

Close down Edge completely. Use End task in Task Manager if necessary to close down any lingering instances of msedge.exe.

Copy the text in the box:

reg add HKCU\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\Recommended /v HubsSidebarEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1Right-click on the start button and select Run.

Type cmd and press Ctrl-Shift-Enter to open an administrator command window.

Paste into the command window and press Enter. You should see the message The operation completed successfully.

Close the command window, launch Edge and test. It may be necessary to restart the computer to make the change work.

If you change your mind, reverse the change by following steps 1-6 again, this time using at step 2 the text in this box:

reg delete HKCU\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\Recommended /v HubsSidebarEnabledIf you have a problem with the sidebar or a question about it, please use the Ask a question button to start a thread about it in the appropriate forum.