Remove Check Boxes From Icons in Windows 11 & 10 (Item Check Boxes)

Item check boxes are the small squares that appear on files, folders and desktop icons when you hover over or select them, so you can pick several items with clicks alone instead of holding Ctrl. In Windows 11 you turn them on or off in File Explorer under View → Show → Item check boxes. In Windows 10 it is the View tab → Item check boxes. One click either way, and it applies everywhere at once, which is also how you remove check boxes from icons on the desktop. Here is the part that surprises people: the same single setting also puts check boxes on every icon on your desktop, and many touchscreen laptops ship with it already switched on. So if a little square has suddenly appeared on your Recycle Bin, nothing is broken and nothing has got in. It is this switch.

Jake found out the honest way. His mother called to say "boxes" had appeared on all her desktop icons after a Windows update and she was afraid it was a virus. Jake drove over, opened File Explorer, cleared one menu item, and the boxes were gone from the desktop too. Ethan, meanwhile, turns the same setting on for every new laptop he sets up, because on a touchpad it is the easiest way to pick fifteen files out of a folder of two hundred without one slip of the Ctrl key wiping the selection. Same switch, two opposite reasons. This page covers both, plus the cases where the boxes refuse to go away.

If you only came for the switch, the box above is all you need. If the boxes keep coming back, or you manage more than one PC, the sections below explain where the setting lives and how to make it hold.

What item check boxes are, and what they are not

An item check box is a selection aid. When the setting is on, every file, folder and desktop icon gets a small square in its top-left corner. The square is invisible until you hover over the item or select it, then it shows; once checked, it stays visible. Clicking the square adds that item to the current selection without touching anything else that is already selected. Clicking the item's name or icon behaves exactly as it always did.

That is the whole job. The boxes do not mark files as done, flag them, sync them, or change anything about the files themselves. They are purely a different way to select. A few things they get confused with:

• The green check mark or cloud icons on files in a OneDrive folder are sync status, not check boxes. They come from OneDrive and have nothing to do with this setting.
• The blue double-arrow on some files means compressed (NTFS compression), also unrelated.
• Check boxes inside Settings, Control Panel or a web form are ordinary option boxes. The phrase "item check boxes" refers only to the selection squares in File Explorer and on the desktop.

In Details view there is one bonus: a single check box appears at the top of the Name column. Check it and every item in the folder is selected, the same as Ctrl + A. Clear it and everything is cleared.

Turn item check boxes on or off in Windows 11

1. Open File Explorer. Press Win + E, or click the folder icon on the taskbar. If you are not sure where it lives, the File Explorer location guide shows every way in.
2. In the toolbar along the top, click View. It is the button with a small grid of squares, usually between Sort and the three dots.
3. Hover over Show at the bottom of the menu that drops down.
4. Click Item check boxes. A check mark appears beside it when the boxes are on; click again to remove the check mark and turn them off.

The change applies straight away, to every folder and to the desktop. You do not need to restart. If your File Explorer toolbar looks different, with tabs labeled Home, Share and View, you are on the older ribbon layout that some Windows 11 builds and the classic Explorer still use; follow the Windows 10 steps below instead, because the switch sits in the same place there.

On a narrow window the toolbar collapses some buttons into the three dots (···). If you cannot see View, widen the window or look there.

Turn item check boxes on or off in Windows 10

1. Open File Explorer with Win + E.
2. Click the View tab at the top of the window. If the ribbon is collapsed so you only see tab names, clicking View expands it.
3. In the Show/hide group on the right, check Item check boxes to turn them on, or clear it to turn them off.

That group also holds File name extensions and Hidden items, the two other switches people go looking for in the same week. If you were sent here while trying to find a file that is not showing up, the hidden files guide is the one you want next.

The Folder Options route: "Use check boxes to select items"

Before the ribbon and the new toolbar existed, this setting lived in Folder Options, and it still does in every version of Windows 11 and 10. It is the same switch under a longer name, and it is useful when File Explorer itself is misbehaving or when you are already in Folder Options for something else.

1. Press Win + R, type control folders, and press Enter. (In Windows 11 you can also go to File Explorer → ··· → Options. In Windows 10, View tab → Options.)
2. Open the View tab in the window that appears.
3. Scroll the Advanced settings list to Use check boxes to select items.
4. Check it to turn the boxes on, clear it to turn them off, then click OK.

Every method on this page changes the same underlying value, so you can switch on in one place and off in another and they will always agree. Here is the full picture side by side:

Method	Windows 11	Windows 10	Best for
File Explorer menu	View → Show → Item check boxes	View tab → Item check boxes	Everyday on and off
Folder Options	control folders → View → Use check boxes to select items	Same	When the menu is missing or Explorer is unstable
Registry	AutoCheckSelect = 1 or 0	Same	Boxes that will not turn off; scripts
PowerShell	Set-ItemProperty on the same value	Same	One command, or many PCs
Group Policy Preferences or Intune	Push the registry value in user context	Same	Fleets; there is no dedicated policy

Item check boxes not working, or will not turn off

This is the search that brings most people to this page, usually phrased as "item check boxes Windows 11 not working" or "disable item check boxes in Windows 11" after the menu check mark seemed to do nothing. The causes, from most to least common:

The desktop still shows boxes after you turned them off

The desktop is drawn by the same Explorer process, but it does not always repaint immediately. Right-click an empty part of the desktop and choose Refresh, or press F5 with the desktop selected. If the boxes are still there, restart Explorer: open Task Manager with Ctrl + Shift + Esc, find Windows Explorer in the Processes list, right-click it and choose Restart. The taskbar disappears for a second and comes back, and the desktop is redrawn with the current setting. The Explorer restart guide has the other ways to do it if Task Manager will not open.

The tick will not stay off: set the registry value directly

Some PCs, especially touchscreen laptops and 2-in-1s, keep switching the boxes back on, or the menu check mark appears to change without the boxes going away. Setting the value directly settles it:

1. Press Win + R, type regedit, press Enter, and click Yes at the permission prompt.
2. Paste this into the address bar at the top and press Enter:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
3. In the right-hand pane, find AutoCheckSelect. If it is not there, right-click an empty area, choose New → DWORD (32-bit) Value, and name it AutoCheckSelect.
4. Double-click it and set the value data to 0 to turn check boxes off, or 1 to turn them on. Click OK.
5. Restart Explorer as described above, or sign out and back in.

Or do the same thing in one line of PowerShell, no regedit needed. Open PowerShell (it does not have to be as administrator, because this is your own user hive) and run:

# turn item check boxes OFF for the current user
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced' -Name AutoCheckSelect -Value 0 -Type DWord
Stop-Process -Name explorer -Force   # Explorer restarts on its own

# turn them back ON
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced' -Name AutoCheckSelect -Value 1 -Type DWord

If regedit refuses to save the value with an "error writing the value's new contents" message, something is holding the key, usually security software or a policy; the registry write error guide walks through it.

It keeps coming back after you sign in: something is reapplying it

If the value is correct when you set it and wrong again the next morning, something is writing it at sign-in. On a work or school PC that is almost always your IT department, through Group Policy Preferences, Intune or a sign-in script, and it is worth asking before you fight it. On a home PC, check whether a "tweaker" or theming utility is set to apply its own preferences at startup. Roaming profiles, where your settings follow you between PCs on a network, can also carry the value back from another machine.

Stuck in tablet mode or touch mode

On 2-in-1 laptops, Windows treats the device as a tablet when the keyboard is folded back or detached, and in that posture check boxes are part of the touch-friendly layout. On Windows 10, open the Action Center and make sure Tablet mode is off, then turn the boxes off again. On Windows 11, which has no manual tablet mode, attach or unfold the keyboard and set the value in the registry as above, so the desktop posture keeps your choice. If the boxes come back only when the screen is flipped, that is this behavior, not a fault.

The menu item is missing or grayed out

If Item check boxes does not appear under View → Show at all, you are probably looking at a File Explorer window opened inside another app (a Save As or Open dialog), which has a reduced menu. Open a real File Explorer window with Win + E. If it is grayed out there too, a policy may be restricting Explorer's options; the Folder Options route above and the registry route both still work unless that same policy locks them.

Selecting files without check boxes, and when the boxes are worth it

Check boxes are one of four ways to pick several items. Knowing the others is the reason many people turn the boxes off again:

• Ctrl + click adds or removes one item at a time. The catch: let go of Ctrl for a single click and the whole selection collapses to that one item. That slip is exactly what check boxes prevent.
• Shift + click selects everything between the first item and the one you click. Fast for a run of files in a row.
• Ctrl + A selects everything in the folder; then Ctrl + click the few you want to leave out.
• Drag a box around items with the mouse, starting on empty space.
• Keyboard only: move with the arrow keys while holding Ctrl, and press Ctrl + Space to add or remove the focused item from the selection.

Ethan's rule of thumb, which he gives to every client: if you use a mouse and you are comfortable with Ctrl, you do not need the boxes, and they add visual clutter. If you use a touchpad, a touchscreen or a pen, or if someone in the house finds holding a key while clicking awkward, turn them on. They make careful multi-selection something you can do with one finger, and a misplaced tap no longer wipes ten minutes of picking. It is also the setting he recommends for anyone with a tremor or limited grip, because it removes the two-handed part of the job entirely.

If you like how the boxes work but find double-clicking awkward too, the single-click to open setting pairs well with them: hover selects, a single click opens, and the box handles multi-selection.

Which selection method fits you: a quick comparison

If you are deciding whether to keep the boxes on, this is the trade-off in one view. Pick the row that sounds like how you work.

Method	Hands needed	Risk of losing the selection	Best for
Item check boxes	One	Low: clicking a box never clears the others	Touchpads, touchscreens, pens, limited grip
Ctrl + click	Two	High: one click without Ctrl resets everything	Mouse users picking scattered files
Shift + click	Two	Medium	A continuous run of files
Ctrl + A, then Ctrl + click to exclude	Two	Medium	Almost everything in a folder
Drag a selection box	One	Medium: easy to start the drag on a file by mistake	Icons grouped together on screen
Ctrl + arrows, Ctrl + Space	Keyboard only	Low once learned	Screen-reader and keyboard users

None of these cancel each other out. With the boxes on, every keyboard and mouse method still works exactly as before; the boxes are an extra, not a replacement.

Remove check boxes from desktop icons

This is where most of the "is it a virus?" calls come from. The desktop is part of File Explorer, so it obeys the same setting. With item check boxes on, hovering over any desktop icon shows the square, and selected icons keep it. There is no separate desktop switch; turning the boxes off in File Explorer turns them off on the desktop too, after a refresh.

Two related things that change desktop icons and get mistaken for this:

• Icons that jump to the left edge and line up by themselves are Auto arrange, which the auto arrange guide covers.
• Icons that vanish entirely are a different setting again, Show desktop icons, covered in the missing desktop icons guide.

For IT admins: setting item check boxes across a fleet

There is no dedicated Group Policy or Intune setting for item check boxes. The setting is the per-user DWORD AutoCheckSelect under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, so it has to be delivered in user context. The usual routes:

• Group Policy Preferences: User Configuration → Preferences → Windows Settings → Registry, action Update, hive HKEY_CURRENT_USER, the key path above, value AutoCheckSelect, type REG_DWORD, data 1 or 0. Leave "Apply once and do not reapply" checked if you want a default that users can change, or clear it to enforce the value at every refresh.
• Intune: a PowerShell script or remediation running as the signed-in user (Run this script using the logged-on credentials: Yes) with the Set-ItemProperty line shown earlier. Detection can read the value and compare.
• New profiles only: load the default user hive (reg load HKU\DefaultUser C:\Users\Default\NTUSER.DAT), set the value under it, and unload. Every profile created afterward starts with your choice; existing profiles are untouched.

The value takes effect at the next Explorer start, so expect users to see the change at next sign-in rather than immediately. If you enforce it off and touch-device users complain about selection, consider scoping the setting by device type instead of fleet-wide; on a 2-in-1 the boxes are a genuine accessibility aid. Helpdesk tip: when a user reports "boxes on all my icons", check this value before anything else. It resolves the ticket in under a minute and saves a malware scan nobody needed.

Jake's mother still has the boxes turned off, and she now knows where the switch is, which matters more. Ethan still turns them on for every touchpad laptop he sets up. Neither choice is wrong. The squares are a tool, not a change Windows made to your files, and the switch that controls them is one click away in the View menu whenever you change your mind. If they appeared without warning, you have not been hacked, and you have not broken anything. You have found a setting.

Revision note. Written October 1, 2026, for the File Explorer in current Windows 11 and Windows 10. If the little boxes gave someone in your family a fright this week, this page is for them, and they did nothing wrong.