Hide Back/Forward Buttons in the Title Area in VS Code

If you like to keep the title area tidy, you can now hide the back and forward buttons.

Before diving into how to hide these buttons, let’s first understand what they’re used for.

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What are the Back/Forward Buttons For?

The back/forward buttons are part of the Navigation Control feature. This feature allows you to quickly navigate through your editing history, such as:

• Recently edited files
• Positions within files where you’ve made changes or clicked

While these buttons can be useful, the Navigation Control feature works best when you use keybinds instead of clicking the arrows.

Default keybinds:

Windows:

• Go back: Alt + LeftArrow
• Go forward: Alt + RightArrow

macOS:

• Go back: Ctrl + - (hyphen)
• Go forward Shift + Ctrl + -

The best part? The keybinds will continue to work even if you hide the back/forward buttons 🎉

Let’s now free up some screen space by hiding those buttons!

Hide the Back/Forward Buttons

You can hide the buttons in three simple ways:

Right-click the title area

Right-click anywhere in the title area.

Uncheck the option labeled Navigation Controls.

Use the Settings menu

Open the Settings by pressing CTRL + , (comma) on Windows or Cmd + , on macOS.
Or navigate to Files > Preferences > Settings.

In the Settings search bar, look for Workbench > Navigation Control and toggle it off.

Edit the settings.json file

Add the following line of code to your settings.json file:

"workbench.navigationControl.enabled": false

That’s it! 💜

Now you have more screen space and can navigate using the keybinds.

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