Do you prefer to eject your USB drive or external storage drive without hitting the Safely Remove Hardware icon? In this post on MiniTool Website, we will show you how to hide Safely Remove Hardware icon in 3 ways.

It is universal acknowledged that you must remove your external hardware or USB flash drive with caution because any improper removal might lead to data loss. The Safely Remove Hardware option is very useful because it can protect the data on the storage device from any harm when unplugged from the computer.

However, some of you consider it is a waste of time to hit this option every time you want to eject the USB drive or external hard drive. Therefore, you might prefer to hide or remove Safely Remove USB icon. In the content below, we will introduce you how to hide Safely Remove Hardware icon in 3 ways.

Tips:

Data loss will occur if a file is in use when unplugging the USB flash drive or other external storage devices. If you pull the storage device too soon, your file can also be corrupted. To avoid data loss or corruption, you had better back up the files on your storage devices with MiniTool ShadowMaker. With a copy of important files, you can restore them easily and quickly with the free backup software when data disasters occur.

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How to Hide Safely Remove Hardware Icon?

Fix 1: Drag and Drop Manually

After plugging in your USB device, you can hide Safely Remove Hardware icon by dragging it to the Show hidden icons area manually. To do so, you need to: find the Safely Remove Hardware icon > hit it > hold it to the up arrow icon to show the Show hidden icons area > drop it into the area.

move the icon manually

Fix 2: Change Notifications Settings

You can modify the notifications settings to hide the Safely Remove Hardware icon.

Step 1. Right-click on taskbar to choose Taskbar settings from the drop-down menu.

Step 2. In the Taskbar tab, scroll down to look for Select which icon appear on the taskbar and hit it.

Step 3. Toggle off Windows Explorer: Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media.

toggle it off

Fix 3: Use WindowsBatchFile.bat File

To hide Safely Remove USB icon, you can choose to copy & paste the WindowBatchFile.bat file into the Startup folder on your computer.

Step 1. Open Notepad and copy & paste the following content:

reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\SysTray /v “Services” /t reg_dword /d 29 /f systray

Step 2. Click on File and choose Save As from the drop-down menu.

hit Save As

Step 3. Select Save as type to All Files and rename the file as WindowsBatchFile.bat.

rename the File as WindowsBatchFile.bat

Step 4. Select a location to save the file and hit Save.

Step 5. Press Win + R to open the Run box.

Step 6. Type shell:common startup and hit Enter to open the Startup folder.

Step 7. Copy & Paste the WindowBatchFile.bat file into the Startup folder.

Step 8. Restart your computer to make the changes effective.

Fix 4: Change Disk Removal Policy

There are two types of disk removal polices in Windows – Quick Removal and Better Performance. The former policy enables you to eject your USB flash drive without pressing the Safely Removal Hardware icon. Here’s how to enable this policy to hide Safely Removal Hardware icon:

Step 1. Right-click on the Start icon to select Device Manager.

Step 2. Expand Disk drives and right-click on your target external hard drive or USB drive to choose Properties.

Step 3. Under the Policies tab, tick Quick removal (default) and click on OK to save the changes.

tick Quick removal

How to Fix Safely Remove Hardware Icon Missing on Windows 10/11?
How to Fix Safely Remove Hardware Icon Missing on Windows 10/11?

If you can’t find Safely Remove Hardware icon when trying to unplug your USB flash drive from your computer at the moment, you can resort to this post.

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Final Words

Now, you must be clear about how to hide Safely Remove Hardware icon. Please follow the instructions in this post carefully and don’t forget to create a backup for the important files on the storage device with MiniTool ShadowMaker.

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