Turn Off the MSN News Feed in Microsoft Edge New Tab

To turn off the MSN news feed in Microsoft Edge, open a new tab, click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the page, choose Custom, and set Content to Off. That's the whole fix in today's Edge. But if you're here because you followed our old instructions and clicked around looking for a gear icon next to "Powered by MSN," here's the part that actually matters: that gear icon doesn't exist anymore, because the browser it lived in doesn't exist anymore. The Edge you're using today is a completely different program wearing the same name.

We wrote our original version of this guide back in January 2017, and if you found it through a search engine, we're sorry — it sent you looking for a control that Microsoft removed years ago. That old post described "Information cards" and a gear icon sitting next to the words "Powered by MSN." Both belonged to the first Microsoft Edge, the one built on Microsoft's own EdgeHTML engine. That browser is gone. What replaced it looks similar, uses the same name, and does roughly the same job of showing you MSN content on a new tab — but every menu, every label, and every setting underneath it changed.

Turn off the New Tab feed in today's Edge

These steps are the same on Windows 11 and Windows 10 — Edge is the same browser on both, so there's no separate "Windows 11 version" of this fix. If you're on a phone or tablet, jump to the mobile section instead; that's a different app with a different settings screen.

Step 1: Open a new tab

Click the + button next to your current tabs, or press Ctrl + T. This opens Edge's New Tab page — the screen with the search box, your shortcuts, and (if it's turned on) the news feed underneath.

Step 2: Open Page settings

Look for a small gear icon in the top-right corner of the New Tab page itself — not the three-dot menu in Edge's main toolbar, and not the browser's main Settings page. This is a separate, smaller settings panel that only controls what appears on the New Tab page.

Step 3: Choose Custom, then set Content to Off

Clicking the gear opens a small panel of layout options. Depending on which build of Edge you're running, you'll see either a straightforward Show feed switch, or a Custom option that expands into a Content dropdown. Ethan put it this way when Jake asked why the panel looked different from the screenshots he'd found online:

"Edge changes this panel's wording every year or two — sometimes it's a toggle, sometimes it's a dropdown, sometimes it's called Layout instead of Page settings. The underlying idea never changes: there's always a setting that means 'stop showing me content,' and it's always in this same corner. Stop hunting for the exact words in a screenshot and start hunting for the concept."

If you see the toggle version, flip Show feed to off and you're done. If you see the dropdown version, select Custom, then find Content and set it to Off. Either way, refresh the page. The feed should disappear immediately — no restart of the whole browser required, unlike our 2017 instructions.

The setting you'll be tempted to use instead — and why it's not the same thing

Before you reach Content off, you'll almost certainly notice a layout option called Focused. It looks like exactly what you want: the New Tab page gets cleaner, the feed drops lower down, and at first glance it seems gone. It isn't. Focused hides the feed from the part of the page you see without scrolling — it doesn't remove it. Scroll down on a Focused new tab and the stories are still there, still loading, still tracking what you click.

If you see an AI box instead of a feed

Some readers won't see a news feed at all when they open a new tab — instead the page centers on a prompt box for Edge's built-in Copilot, with a search bar and not much else. That's a newer New Tab layout, and it isn't the same setting as the one above.

To get back to the classic layout (and the feed toggle described above), click the gear icon again and look for an option along the lines of Manage Copilot new tab page. That opens a dedicated settings screen for it. Turning that off returns you to the ordinary New Tab page — the one with the Page settings gear and the Content dropdown you just read about. In other words, this is a layer sitting on top of the classic settings, not a replacement for them. Turn off the Copilot layout first if you have it, then follow the Content off steps above.

Turning it off in the Edge mobile app

On a phone, none of the desktop steps above apply — there's no gear icon sitting on the New Tab page itself. Instead:

1) Open the Edge app and tap the ⋯ menu (three dots, usually bottom-right on a phone).
2) Tap Settings.
3) Tap New tab page.
4) Find Show my news feed and switch it off.

If that exact wording isn't there, the mobile app has probably been updated since this was written — the setting has moved before and will likely move again. Look for anything labeled News feed, Feed, or Content inside the New tab page settings screen; it's always grouped there even when the exact name shifts.

Doing this across more than one PC

Jake's shop sells and sets up secondhand laptops, and every customer machine gets a fresh Windows install before it goes out the door. A news feed full of clickbait headlines on a laptop he's about to hand to a customer isn't a huge problem, but it isn't the impression he wants to leave either — and clicking through Page settings on every single machine, one at a time, gets old fast.

The good news is that this is a genuinely common ask for anyone managing several PCs, not just Jake. Microsoft does expose administrative controls for the New Tab page as part of Edge's business management options, reachable through Group Policy or Intune on managed devices. We're not going to hand you an exact policy name here, because getting that one detail wrong is worse than not giving it — a mistyped policy string just does nothing, and you'd have no way to tell from this article whether the fault was ours or a typo on your end. If you're setting up more than a handful of machines, that's the right thing to search for by name inside your management console, where the options are always current and spelled correctly.

For a shop-sized batch — five or ten laptops, not five hundred — the honestly fastest approach is still doing it by hand on each one using the steps above. It takes under a minute per machine once you've done it twice.

Why the feed sometimes comes back on its own

A few readers have told us the feed reappeared days or weeks after they turned it off. There isn't one single cause — a few different things produce the same symptom:

Edge sync brought your old settings back. If you're signed into a Microsoft account and Edge syncs settings across devices, turning the feed off on your laptop but not your desktop can leave the desktop's setting overwriting the laptop's the next time they sync.

A "Switch to new look" prompt reset the layout. Edge occasionally offers to switch you to an updated New Tab design. Accepting it can reset the page settings you'd already customized, because you're technically now looking at a different layout with its own default.

A major Edge update changed the default again. Microsoft has changed the New Tab page's default layout more than once. An update landing quietly in the background can flip Content back to its default state.

Whatever the cause, the fix is the same: reopen the gear icon and set Content to off again. If it happens repeatedly on the same PC, check whether Edge sync is turned on for that account, since that's the most common repeat offender.

A different feed you might actually be looking for

Ethan flagged this to Jake before he'd even finished asking his question: "Before you touch Edge at all — is the news you're trying to kill actually appearing on your taskbar, next to the clock, not inside the browser?"

That's a genuinely common mix-up. Windows has a separate Widgets panel that opens from an icon near the taskbar clock, showing weather and news headlines completely independent of Edge. If nothing you do in Edge's New Tab settings changes what you're seeing, there's a good chance you're actually looking at Widgets, not the browser feed at all — and the fix lives in a totally different place: right-click the taskbar and look for the Widgets option there, rather than anywhere inside Edge.

The two features look similar on purpose — both are Microsoft surfacing MSN-sourced content — but they're built and controlled separately. Turning one off has no effect on the other.

Frequently asked questions

Why can't I find the gear icon next to "Powered by MSN"?

Because it belonged to the old EdgeHTML version of Microsoft Edge, which Microsoft retired after rebuilding the browser on Chromium in 2020. Today's Edge has a different New Tab settings panel entirely; see the steps above.

What's the difference between Focused and Content off?

Focused hides the feed from the visible part of the page but leaves it loading further down if you scroll. Content off removes it from the page entirely. If you want it gone completely, use Content off.

Will turning off the feed also stop Edge from opening to MSN when it starts?

No, those are separate settings. What Edge opens at launch is controlled under Settings → Start, home, and new tabs → On startup. The New Tab feed is controlled separately through the gear icon on the New Tab page itself. You may need to change both.

The feed keeps coming back after I turn it off — why?

Usually Edge sync restoring an old setting from another signed-in device, a "Switch to new look" prompt resetting the layout, or an Edge update changing the default again. Turn it off again and check whether sync is enabled if it keeps recurring.

Does turning off the feed also disable the Copilot new tab page?

No. If you have the Copilot new tab layout, it's a separate screen turned off through its own "Manage Copilot new tab page" option. Turn that off first if you have it, then set Content to off on the classic layout underneath.

How do I turn off the news feed on Edge for iPhone or Android?

Tap the ⋯ menu, then Settings, then New tab page, and switch off Show my news feed. The exact wording can shift between app updates, so look for anything mentioning Feed or Content in that same screen if it's changed.

I don't see a "Show feed" toggle, only "Content" — why?

Edge has used a few different wordings for this panel over the years — sometimes a direct toggle, sometimes a Custom dropdown with a Content option inside it. Both control the same thing; use whichever version your Edge currently shows.

Can I turn off the feed without losing my search bar and shortcuts?

Yes. Setting Content to off only removes the feed section. Your search box and pinned shortcuts stay exactly where they were.

Is there a way to remove the feed for every PC in my shop at once?

Edge offers administrative controls for the New Tab page through Group Policy and Intune on managed devices, but the exact policy names are best confirmed inside your own management console rather than guessed at here. For a small handful of machines, doing it by hand per PC is usually faster in practice.

Does disabling the feed also stop suggested content in the Start menu or taskbar?

No. Windows' taskbar Widgets panel shows MSN-sourced news independently of Edge, and it's controlled from the taskbar itself, not from inside the browser. Turning off Edge's feed has no effect on it.

Will Microsoft ever bring the feed back after a browser update?

It's possible — Edge updates have changed the New Tab page's default layout more than once already. If it reappears after an update, the same Content off steps will remove it again.

Is there a privacy reason to turn off the feed, or is it just visual clutter?

Mostly clutter. The feed itself doesn't ask for extra permissions beyond what Edge already has, and turning it off won't change what Microsoft or your ISP can see about your browsing. If tracking is the actual concern, that's a setting further down in Edge's privacy options — not this one — and worth a separate look.

Does "Content off" delete my bookmarks or top sites too?

No. It only affects the news feed section of the New Tab page. Bookmarks, favorites, and your browsing history are untouched.

What if the settings gear on the New Tab page is grayed out?

That usually means the PC is managed by a workplace or school account, and an administrator has locked the New Tab page settings through policy. If you don't manage the device yourself, you won't be able to change this setting — that's a limit on your account, not something you're doing wrong.

Revision note. Originally published January 25, 2017. Rewritten August 18, 2026 for Windows 11 and Windows 10. The original guide described the "Powered by MSN" gear icon and Information cards in the old EdgeHTML version of Microsoft Edge — accurate for the browser as it existed back then. Microsoft has since rebuilt Edge on Chromium and moved this setting into an entirely new panel, which is what this update walks you through. If you landed here frustrated because a nine-year-old screenshot sent you looking for a button that vanished years ago, you're not missing anything — the button really is gone, and we're glad you found your way to the current one.