Introducing the new Extensions menu on the toolbar

[josh_bodner]

Extensions are small applications that enhance the browser’s functionality. Once you install an extension, you can notice the extension icon appearing on the toolbar. If you have several extensions installed on your browser, these extension icons take up considerable space on your toolbar. We have received significant feedback from the users asking for the ability to manage these extensions and reclaim space on the toolbar.  

To address this feedback, we are rolling out a new Extensions menu on the toolbar. This extension menu allows you to hide one or more of your extensions from the toolbar. Furthermore, you can directly visit the Edge add-ons site to install more extensions or the extensions management page using the two links provided in the menu. 

The extensions menu will be shown to you on the toolbar if you have one or more extensions installed on the browser. The default state of these extensions are shown on the toolbar. You can choose to hide them by clicking on the extensions menu icon and the view/hide icon (eye icon) listed inside. Alternatively, you can right-click on the extensions icon on the toolbar and choose “Hide from toolbar” to hiding that extension from the toolbar.  

There are extension-specific “more” options (...) available against each extension inside the extension menu. Try out these options to manage the extension level settings for each extension. 

If you would like your extensions upfront on the toolbar, you can also choose to remove the extensions menu from the toolbar. This will ensure that all your extensions are available on the toolbar and the extensions menu icon is hidden from the toolbar. For this, you can right-click on the extensions menu icon and select “Customize toolbar” option. This redirects you to the Appearance section inside the Settings page for Edge. You can toggle the button off or on for the extensions menu to hide or show it on the toolbar. 

The feature has been rolled out to the Dev and Canary channels as part of the CFR. Do leave us your valuable feedback around the extensions menu by leaving a comment below or sending us feedback via the browser (… menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback). We hope you enjoy this exciting new feature and look forward to hearing from you! 

[#2]

Happy to see I'm not the only one who finds this a step backwards. I already sent feedback about this but I'd like to join the crowd here in my finding this "feature" awkward and not very well thought out. Honestly, who didn't know that you can hide extensions simply by dragging the search bar; and if they didn't, why add this instead of just letting them know? In any case, seeing the feedback here (and the reply to my direct feedback) I expect the old functionality to be restored and the extension button to be re-implemented as an optional addition instead of replacement of a perfectly functional feature.

[#3]

I'm going to join some of the others here - let us hide this like we're able to hide any other button on the menubar. It's great to have a centralized place for this to live, but like all other non-navigation UI it should be an option, not a requirement. Having a right click menu option to "hide from menubar" but then require the puzzle piece be visible is a little confusing - we're trading what used to relegate this to ... to a new menu button we can't get rid of.

[#4]

So Chrome that's used by millions of people, and has the exact same feature, is backward and bad? right.

[#5]

@HotCakeX 

We wouldn't know, we use Edge (Dev) otherwise we wouldn't be here :).

It does appear now (by testing) that Chrome 87 has a similar feature...

... but that still means the Edge team decided to make something similar in v90, and it's clearly hitting resistance. So they can change it (they clearly decided to release it now, seeing the blog post that all this is a reply too).

Adding a forced button in the toolbar to hide other toolbar buttons is just weird. Let us move the button away from there, so we can have the best of both worlds.

[#6]

Yes, you stated facts about how the UI is now and how it was. But they are not pros to a lot of people. The problems you describe from the old way are not problems to a lot of people. The features added being pros is just your opinion, which is fine. They are not pros for me.

[#7]

I never had an issue with the original system. I didn't want a extra icon so tried hid it, only to  be flooded with icons. Took awhile to figure out how to revert the change. "hide from toolbar" being greyed out if the new extensions icon is hidden is very unintuitive. I feel choosing to have the new extensions icon hidden should make extensions function as before, and use the overflow into settings. In the end a feature to reduce clutter has only added and extra icon in my case.   Also the new list not only alphabetical, potentially  putting someones most used extensions a long way down the list. 

[#8]

@HotCakeX Not everyone uses extensions like that. I never have to manage my extensions. If I do then I go directly the the extension page.

The new extension menu icon creates clutter for me. I can hide the other icons the new way, but it places another useless icon on my toolbar. The old overflow menu I can hide all the other extension icons in the main menu and only that one icon I want is shown at all times.

• Give the user the flag for the old extension overflow menu.

• Or add a hide icon menu item to each extension icon, so the user can hide icons with the extension menu button disabled. To enable them again, the user can go to edge://extensions.

• Another option is to allow the user to completely hide that useless profile picture on the toolbar. That way they have only two icons to begin with. New extension menu icon and one other icon the user chooses.

[#9]

At first I wasn't sure about this. I kind of felt like others that it was adding clutter. But, it's grown on me, big time. It may not seem much to some, but not having to move to the menu button actually is awesome. Physical reasons aside (carpal tunnel syndrome), all my extensions are in one confined space. It almost seems awkward now to go to the menu.

Well done, Team MS Edge!

[#10]

@Josh -- The change in how to hide extensions on the toolbar is a huge, enormous, time-sucking fail. I say this because absent this giant step backwards, all the changes your team has made to the functionality of Edge have been helpful and at the least, not harmful (with the possible exception of the early Favorites duplication issue). Please read through the complaints below from longtime users about why the extensions button is a fail compared to previously just hiding extension buttons by clicking the . . . button. As it is, because the new extensions button has yet to roll out to my Edge installation, I now have all my extensions cluttering up my formerly clearn(er) ribbon menu with no way to activate the "Hide from toolbar" button. Seriously, you guys solved a problem here that does not exist. As for needing to know the name of extensions whose icon you don't recognize -- that's what the Extensions button under the menu icon is for. Sheesh, what a mess you've made. I hope you can clean it up soon.

[#11]

Do I like it? Yes. Do I dislike it? Yes.
In the previous menu I could sort and I could have the most used extensions at the top. Now everything is sorted alphabetically and the search for the extension I desire to use is slower for me. Also, the new menu is inconsistent with the History and Favorites menus. Where is the lens to search? Where is the pin button?

[#12]

This is a terrible change. I keep all my commonly used extensions in the ... menu so I will have more space to have my address bar visible. The only buttons I have visible currently are the Collections Button, and the Share Button.

[#13]

@josh_bodner 

This is mainly how I have my screen set up. Everything thing else goes to the Ellipses menu.

[#14]

It's useful and I like it.

[#15]

I ended up giving up and disabling the extension menu and letting the extensions shrink my URL bar to an inch in size.

In the old dock I had the extensions ordered for use and usefulness. Most of my extensions only did stuff passively so letting them hide away is fine, while only 15-20ish of them actually had some sort of either toggle or interactable menu that I occasionally used. Only 3 of them commonly enough to warrant on the URL bar.

I now have a choice, deal with having 15-20 extensions on my URL bar or try to perfectly remember the names of each and every one of my extensions in order to find them in the alphabetical list without spending 4-5 minutes each and every time.

[#16]

This is my life now

@Ebsolas 

[#17]

@Ebsolas

But, isn't that a bit strong what you're claiming? I've clearly spoken against how the feature is now,

but you are claiming that you have a choice about _all_ your extensions in the toolbar, or _none_ of them. And that's simply not true. You can still have a few select extensions in the toolbar, and the rest in the alphabetical menu-button. If you have the button showing, you can toggle which extensions you want directly on the toolbar or not.

The annoyance most have is that this claims to reduce clutter (for the people who were unaware you could move extensions away from the toolbar), but for the people who actually _did_ manage their toolbars, it now adds a forced button.. which is just plain annoying and backwards.. but also not more than a single button.

[#18]

I hate this button.
where it put them in the menu is exactly where I want them to be. turning off the extension button disables hiding them at all.

can we just make it so that turning off the extension button returns the old functionality of putting the hidden buttons in the menu?
while we're getting rid of buttons added for no reason; can we have an option to turn off the downloads button and return them to the statusbar at the bottom of the browser?
every .exe I download, I have to click the downloads button, click the menu on the .exe and click keep, because it insists everything is unsafe and that I don't know what I'm doing. It was minorly annoying in the statusbar, now that it's in a menu it's 3x as annoying.

[#19]

Geeze, Missy, your replies in this whole thread are outright condescending to customers who are upset with the changed UX. Why are you talking down to so many? It's counter-productive and altogether unexpected.

[#20]

@Dino_Zuma 

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@Dino_Zuma wrote:
Geeze, Missy, your replies in this whole thread are outright condescending to customers who are upset with the changed UX. Why are you talking down to so many? It's counter-productive and altogether unexpected.

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If you have a problem, use the report button.

Don't attack users personally.

[#21]

OK, so I found one solution to my problem. The new Extension toolbar icon "on-off" switch is hidden in the "Settings/Appearance" menu along with other Toolbar buttons. While the Extensions button was rolled out in the latest update, the button never appeared automatically in my toolbar, which made all my extensions suddenly flood my toolbar after the update. I had the inspiration to search for it today and I found it. This makes me wonder why no one on the MS EdgeDev team mentioned this before. *Sigh* Oh, well,