If you’ve just upgraded Windows or opened a Microsoft app and Copilot is suddenly everywhere, you’re not stuck with it. Here’s how to actually turn it off (or at least shove it out of sight) across Windows, Microsoft 365, Edge, and the Copilot website.

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Before you start: what “off” really means

Copilot is baked deep into Windows 11 and Microsoft 365 now, so “turning it off” usually means one of three things, depending on how far you want to go.

• Hide it visually so you don’t see the icon, but the feature still exists in the background.
• Disable it in individual apps so it stops offering suggestions there.
• Lock down data sharing and model training so Copilot isn’t learning from your chats as much.

You’re not getting a big red “uninstall Copilot completely” button on consumer Windows and Microsoft 365, but you can get very close in practice.

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Turn off Copilot on Windows 11

1. Hide Copilot from the taskbar

If your main annoyance is that glowing icon on the taskbar, this is the fastest fix.​

1. Open Settings.
2. Go to Personalization → Taskbar.
3. Under “Taskbar items”, toggle Copilot to Off.

That removes the Copilot button from the taskbar so you don’t accidentally open it, though the underlying feature still exists in Windows.​

2. Use Group Policy to disable Copilot completely (Pro / Enterprise)

If you’re on Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education, you can go further and actually tell Windows to turn Copilot off at the system level.​

1. Press Start, type gpedit.msc, and open Local Group Policy Editor.
2. Go to User Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Windows Copilot.
3. Double-click Turn off Windows Copilot.
4. Set it to Enabled, then click OK.

After a sign-out or reboot, Windows disables Copilot for that user, including the taskbar entry and related hooks.​

If you’re on Home edition, you don’t get Group Policy out of the box, so your realistic option is hiding the icon plus disabling Copilot in apps and the browser.

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Turn off Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)

Copilot in Microsoft 365 lives inside each app, so you have to shut it down there as well.

1. Use the “Enable Copilot” switch (when available)

Microsoft now exposes a direct toggle in many Microsoft 365 desktop apps.

1. Open Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote on your PC.
2. Go to File → Options → Copilot.
3. Clear the Enable Copilot checkbox and click OK.

You need to repeat this in every app where you want Copilot gone: turning it off in Word doesn’t automatically turn it off in Excel or PowerPoint on that same machine.

2. Use privacy settings if you don’t see a Copilot tab

On some builds, there’s no dedicated Copilot page yet, but you can still kill the AI features via privacy settings.

1. Open any Microsoft 365 app.
2. Go to File → Account → Account Privacy → Manage Settings.
3. Under Connected experiences, clear Turn on experiences that analyze your content.
4. Click OK, then restart the app.

Unlike the per‑app “Enable Copilot” toggle, this privacy setting propagates across your other Microsoft 365 apps tied to the same account, so you only need to do it once per device.

3. Remove the Copilot button from the ribbon

If you don’t mind Copilot existing in the background but hate the extra icon cluttering your toolbar:

1. In a Microsoft 365 app, go to File → Options → Customize Ribbon.
2. In the list of tabs, clear the Copilot checkbox.
3. Click OK.

This simply hides the button; it doesn’t stop Copilot from working if other AI features remain enabled.

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Turn off Copilot in Microsoft Edge and other apps

Copilot also lives in your browser and a few Windows apps, and it behaves like a clingy sidebar there.

1. Disable Copilot in Edge

Edge ships with Copilot pinned front and center; you can strip that out.

1. Open Microsoft Edge.
2. Click the three dots (…) → Settings → Appearance.
3. Look for Copilot settings such as Show Copilot button on the toolbar and Show Copilot button on the bottom center of the Edge window and toggle them Off.
4. If present, turn off Allow Copilot Vision to view your webpage.

When you’re done, Edge no longer shows the Copilot button or AI sidebar in normal browsing.

2. Turn off Copilot in individual Windows apps

Some stock apps are getting their own Copilot hooks, and you usually disable them in each app’s settings.

• In apps like Notepad, open Settings → AI features (or similar) and toggle Copilot off.
• In Outlook on Windows or the web, use Settings (gear icon), then look for Copilot or “sidebar” options and toggle them off.

This is tedious, but it’s the only way to keep Copilot from popping up inside individual tools you rely on daily.

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Lock down Copilot’s data and training

Even if you hide Copilot, it can still collect and process your conversations when you use it. If you want to keep some features but limit how your data is used, there are a few switches you should flip.​

1. Stop Copilot using your chats for AI training

Microsoft gives you a specific control for whether Copilot conversations can feed model training.​

On the Copilot website (copilot.com):

1. Click your profile picture.
2. Choose your profile name, then Settings → Privacy.
3. Toggle off Model training on text and Model training on voice.

In the Copilot app for Windows or macOS:

1. Click your profile icon.
2. Go to Settings → Privacy.
3. Turn off Model training on text and Model training on voice.​

In the mobile app, you’ll find the same options under Account → Privacy.​​

Once you opt out, Microsoft says your past, present, and future chats are excluded from model training within about 30 days, though they can still be used for other purposes like security and service operation under its privacy policy.

2. Turn off personalization and memory

Copilot can remember things about you to personalize responses, which is handy until it isn’t.​

On the Copilot site or apps:

1. Open Privacy from your profile.
2. Turn off options like Personalization, Memory, or similar wording.
3. Use Delete memory if there’s a button for wiping what it already knows about you.​

That stops Copilot from building a longer‑term profile across sessions and reduces how much context it carries from one chat to the next.​

3. Cut off connectors (OneDrive, Outlook, Google Drive, etc.)

If you enabled connectors, Copilot can reach into your email, cloud storage, and calendars.

1. In Copilot’s account menu, head to Connectors.
2. Turn off everything you don’t want linked, including OneDrive, Outlook, Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar.

Disconnecting these stops Copilot from pulling content out of those services and also reduces the cross‑platform profile that can be built about you.

4. Clear Copilot activity history

You can also purge a lot of historical Copilot activity linked to your Microsoft account.

1. From Copilot’s privacy area, choose Export or delete history.
2. Sign in to your Microsoft account in the browser.
3. Delete activity under categories like Copilot app activity, Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps, and Copilot in Windows apps.

This doesn’t retroactively un‑train models if your data was already used, but it does reduce what’s stored and visible going forward.

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Gaming Copilot and account-level options

If you’re a gamer or just want to nuke the Copilot account layer, there are a couple more switches worth knowing about.

Turn off Gaming Copilot model training

Gaming Copilot shows up in the Xbox Game Bar on Windows and can analyze on‑screen content.​

1. Press Win + G to open Game Bar.
2. Go to Settings → Privacy settings → Gaming Copilot.
3. Turn off Model training on text and hide the widget from the Game Bar widgets list.

Right now, you can’t fully remove Gaming Copilot from Game Bar or stop all voice‑based learning, so the safest option is simply not to interact with it at all.​

Delete your Copilot account

If you want to step away from Copilot as a product but keep your Microsoft account:

1. In the Copilot web app, click your profile.
2. Go to your account page.
3. Choose Delete account for Copilot.

This deletes the Copilot account layer but not your main Microsoft account, and you can still use some Copilot features anonymously if you ever come back.

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What to do in practice (if you just want sanity back)

For most people who are just tired of Copilot getting in the way, a practical setup looks like this:​

• Hide the Copilot button on the Windows 11 taskbar.
• Turn on the “Turn off Windows Copilot” policy if you’re on Pro/Enterprise.
• Disable Enable Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, or flip the “analyze your content” toggle off once in Account Privacy.
• Strip Copilot from Edge’s UI and any built‑in apps where it appears.
• In Copilot’s privacy controls, disable model training, personalization/memory, and all connectors, then clear your history.

It’s not a single kill‑switch, but once you work through these steps, Copilot goes from “everywhere, all at once” to “only there if you deliberately go looking for it.”