After adding the ability to open Micorsoft office files in the Edge browser, Microsoft is now attaching Office 365’s App Launcher Shortcuts to the left sidebar on New Tab Page to make it easier to open its Apps in the browser. The Office Sidebar is now available in the latest Microsoft Edge, here is how you can enable and later disable it if not required.
What is the Office sidebar?
- Office Sidebar is a new feature that was being tested by Microsoft in Edge browser since September last year.
- It contains shortcuts to Microsoft 365 Apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, OneNote, To Do, Calendar and Skype, etc.
- You can notice this as an expansion of the App Launcher that appears on the left side of the New Tab Page.
- It supports dark mode and adjusts itself automatically when you resize the Edge window.
- Irrespective of the New Tab Page layout you choose, the Sidebar stays open and is permanently visible unless you hide it.
- Now available to general consumers and could be useful more to Microsoft 365 subscribers as well as normal users.
- Though this mimics the Sidebar in Opera that has been integrated with Messengers and Social Platform websites such as Twitter by Opera Software, here Microsoft’s aim or intention could be to allow Edge users to fast open its Office apps from Sidebar.
Note: Edge has Sidebar Search and Vertical Tabs available. The former opens a sidebar and displays relevant results powered by Bing when the user looks up for selected word or phrase on a page, whereas the latter displays current open tabs on the sidebar.
The Office sidebar feature is already available and buried in New Tab Page layout settings in Edge 99 stable. Here is how you can enable it right now.
Enable or disable Office Sidebar in Microsoft Edge browser
- Launch Micorsoft Edge
- Open New Tab Page
- Click on Cogwheel to open Page Layout Settings.
- When it displays Focused, Inspirational, Informational, and custom modes, select the Custom mode to see the options availble to personalize New Tab Page.
- You can now notice the new “Office sidebar” Switch, enable it, this adds the office sidebar to the left side.
Anytime, you can hide or close the sidebar by right-clicking and selecting “hide sidebar” or you can just toggle the office Sidebar option to “off” in the Custom section of Cogwheel.
Final words:
Seems Microsoft has quietly added the Office Sidebar option to the New Tab Page custom section in Edge browser for everyone to enable and open Office 365 Apps with a recent stable version release. The feature is optional and not enabled by default.
What’s your take on this? Have you liked it? Let us know in the comments below.
More on Microsoft Edge:
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Microsoft Edge may get beautiful Bing’s Daily Image & Search Widgets on Android
How to create a Custom Primary Password in Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge v100 Enables Tab Search in Dev channel
