Hide or Show Phone Link Sidebar on Start Menu in Windows 11

This tutorial explains how to Hide or Show the Phone Link sidebar on the Start Menu in a Windows 11 PC. It’s a new feature for the Phone Link app (previously known as Your Phone). When this feature is turned on, a sidebar for the Phone Link app is visible on the right part of the Start menu. That sidebar shows your mobile device’s Battery status, Connection status (Phone Link app is connected or disconnected from your PC), Bluetooth status, and options to open the Phone Link interface to view and send messages, and photos from your mobile device, and view and make calls. In short, you can use your mobile device directly from the Start menu of Windows 11.

In addition, the Phone Link sidebar also includes a Recent section which shows recent photos, calls, and messages. For those, who use the Phone Link app regularly on their Windows 11 PC, this feature is very useful. Once you have linked your mobile device and PC using the Phone Link, the feature can be enabled quickly. But, note that this feature is currently supported for Android. The support for iOS devices will come later in future.

How to Hide or Show Phone Link Sidebar on Start Menu in Windows 11

There are two native options to hide or show the Phone Link sidebar on the Start menu in Windows 11.

Hide or Show Phone Link Sidebar on the Start Menu using the Settings app

Follow these steps to show Phone Link mobile device on the Start menu using the Settings app in Windows 11:

Press the Win+I hotkey and it will Open Windows Settings app
Click on the Personalization category
Access the Start page
Turn on the Show mobile device in Start option
Open the Start menu and you will see Phone Link Mobile Device with a Recent section and other options.

To disable or hide the Phone Link Sidebar on the Start menu, access the Start page in the Settings app, and use the Show mobile device in Start toggle to turn it off.

Read: How to set up and use Calls in Phone Link app

Remove or Show the Phone Link Sidebar on the Start Menu using the Windows Registry

Before using this option, backup Windows Registry (in case you need it later). Now follow these steps to hide or show the Phone Link sidebar on the Start menu using the Registry Editor for the current user:

Type regedit in the Search box and press Enter to open the Registry Editor
Navigate to the following path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Start\Companions\Microsoft.YourPhone_8wekyb3d8bbwe

You will see an IsEnabled DWORD (32-bit) Value. We need to change its Value data to show the Phone Link sidebar. If this key is not present, then create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it IsEnabled
Double-click on the IsEnabled value and an edit box will open
Add 1 in the Value data text field
Press OK.

To turn off or disable the Phone Link sidebar on the Start menu in Windows 11, follow the above-mentioned steps. Change the Value data of IsEnabled DWORD (32-bit) Value to 0, then press the OK button.

Start menu Personalization for Phone Link Sidebar

There is a Start menu personalization setting for the Phone Link sidebar to show/hide badges for notifications and set options for the Recent section. Let’s see how to use this setting to personalize the Phone Link sidebar experience. The steps are:

Open the Phone Link app
Click on the Settings icon available on the top-right corner of its interface
Select the Start menu personalization setting from the left section. Alternatively, you can open the Start menu and click on the Settings icon available on the right side of the Recent section of the Phone Link sidebar to access this setting
Now you can use the Badges toggle to show or hide the badges for unread messages and notifications in the Start menu. This option is present in the Notifications section
There’s a Content section also present. There, you have the Recent Content option. Turning off this option will completely disable recent mobile device content for the Phone Link sidebar. You won’t be able to see recent messages, calls, and photos. However, if you want to keep it turned on, then you can select which recent content you want to Show. Available options are:
- Show recent photos in the Start menu
- Show recent messages in the Start menu
- Show recent calls in the Start menu.

Check all the options or options you want to enable them.

Now read: How to copy text from image in Phone Link app on PC

How do I turn off Phone Link on startup Windows 11?

If you don’t want the Phone Link app to start automatically when Windows starts, then simply disable it from the Startup list. For this, open the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) window, and switch to the Startup apps category. Select the Phone Link option from the list and click on the Disable option to turn off Phone Link on startup in your Windows 11 computer.

How do I change the Start menu side in Windows 11?

By default, the Start menu in Windows 11 opens at the center of the desktop. To change the Start menu side in Windows 11, you have to change the Taskbar alignment to the left part. For this, open the Settings app. Navigate to Personalization > Taskbar > and expand the Taskbar behaviors section. There, you will see a Taskbar alignment option. Use the drop-down menu for that option and select the Left option. This will move the Windows 11 Start menu to the left side.