Earlier this year, Microsoft revamped the Extensions menu in Edge by bringing a dedicated flyout in the toolbar, letting users move extensions’ icons from the toolbar in this flyout. The behavior was similar to the new History, Downloads, and Collections menus that also received a flyout UI. However, one of the drawbacks of the UI was that it brought an all-or-nothing paradigm. Removing the Extensions button placed all the extensions in the toolbar, crowding the toolbar, which was not an ideal solution.
That now seems to be changing, as the latest Edge Canary update adds the ability to hide the Extensions toolbar and the extensions icons completely without spewing all the icons out of the menu right into the toolbar. The update, spotted by Reddit user and Edge-watcher Leopeva64-2, also brings a best of both worlds option where it allows users to display the Extensions button automatically when extensions are turned on, helping declutter the increasingly busy toolbar.
As seen in the screenshots at the top, users can simply right-click on the Extensions button and select the “hide from toolbar” option without affecting the pinned icons or completely remove all icons. Currently, another option to hide the button sits within the ellipsis menu inside the flyout and it is not clear if that option is slated to be removed. Additional options for the button can be spotted in the Appearance settings, which contains the “Show Automatically” feature.
Since this is a minor addition, it might quickly make it to the Dev and Beta channels, before finally being released to the stable channel. With Edge releases now following a condensed release timeline, the wait for newer features to propagate from Canary to other channels is shorter than ever before.
The addition of this option is indeed a welcome one for those that have been asking for the ability to choose to hide the button completely, especially for those who have select extensions and do not need the button on their toolbars.