How to Turn Off Copilot: Four Places, Four Switches

Updated: October 2026

A user asks you to switch Copilot off in Word, and the checkbox the internet told them about isn't there. Copilot lives in four places on a Windows PC, and each one has its own off switch, some for the user and some only for the admin. Here's how to turn off Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps, Outlook, Windows 11 and Edge, for one person or a whole fleet, without uninstalling anything.

Turn It Off or Take It Out?

Turning Copilot off hides it or stops it working. The apps stay installed, and the user or an update can switch it back on. Taking it out means uninstalling the Copilot app and blocking it with policy, which is a separate job with its own risks. Our guide to uninstalling Copilot covers it.

This guide is the first one. Start with the table: find the surface the user is complaining about, then pick the user switch or the admin switch.

How to Turn Off Copilot in Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Signed in with a personal Microsoft account. On Windows, go to File, Options, Copilot, clear Enable Copilot, click OK and restart the app. It works in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. On a Mac, the same checkbox sits under the app menu, Preferences, Authoring and Proofing Tools, Copilot. Microsoft's support page says the setting is per device, so a user with a laptop and a desktop does it twice. There's no way to switch it off in the iOS, Android or web versions.

Signed in with a work account. The checkbox isn't there. That's by design: for work and school accounts, Copilot follows the license and the admin's policy, not a user preference. Unlicensed users have less to switch off than they used to. Microsoft's Message Center post MC1253863 removed the Copilot Chat pane from Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for users without a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license, starting 15 April 2026. Outlook kept it.

Licensed users. Copilot in the apps comes with the license. Remove the license and it goes. Keep the license and you're left with one admin setting, covered below, that switches it off along with other features.

Turn Off Copilot in Word

On a personal account, it takes three steps and a restart.

1. Open Word and go to File, Options, Copilot. On a Mac, go to Word, Preferences, Authoring and Proofing Tools, Copilot.
2. Clear Enable Copilot and click OK.
3. Close Word and open it again.

The checkbox needs Word version 2412 or later on Windows, or 16.93 or later on a Mac. If it's missing on a personal account, update Office before anything else. The dates and versions are on Microsoft's support page, last checked 29 Sep 2026.

Here's what it doesn't cover. It's per app and per device, so Excel and PowerPoint keep Copilot until you clear the same box there. Word on the web, iPhone and Android has no switch at all. And on a work account, the only way to turn off Copilot in Word is the license or the admin policy in the next section.

To check it stuck, look at the Copilot button on the Home ribbon. Microsoft says it goes disabled, and no Copilot feature in Word responds.

This short walkthrough from TheWindowsClub shows the checkbox in each app, if the user is on a personal account.

The Admin Switch That Takes Other Features With It

For work accounts, the one policy that turns Copilot off inside the apps is Allow the use of connected experiences in Office that analyze content. Set it to Disabled and Microsoft says Copilot features stop working in Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

You'll find it in Group Policy under User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Microsoft Office 2016, Privacy, Trust Center. Cloud Policy has the same setting. Without either, push the registry value usercontentdisabled with a value of 2 under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\privacy.

It's a blunt instrument. The same policy covers every connected experience that analyzes content, so PowerPoint Designer and Translator go too. Test it on a pilot group and tell users which features will disappear before they notice.

This r/Intune thread from April 2026 asks the exact question, which setting removes Copilot from the Office ribbon, and the replies land on the MC1253863 change.

Turn Off Copilot in Outlook

In the new Outlook for Windows, go to Settings, Copilot, and switch it off. Classic Outlook doesn't have the toggle yet. On a Mac it's under Quick Settings, Copilot, and on the web and mobile apps it's the Turn on Copilot toggle. Unlike the Word checkbox, Microsoft says the Outlook setting follows the account across devices.

It doesn't always stay put. The admin in this r/sysadmin thread from April 2026 switched Copilot off in Outlook on the web and on iOS, then watched the "Summarize this email" button come back several times a day.

For the whole tenant, you have two levers. The connected experiences policy above covers Outlook too. And in the Microsoft 365 admin center, under Copilot, Settings, Pin Microsoft Copilot Chat, you can pick Do not pin Copilot Chat in Microsoft 365 apps, so it isn't there by default in Outlook and Teams. Users can still add it from the app store, and the change takes up to 48 hours. Microsoft's own page on that setting also says Copilot Chat can no longer be unpinned from the navigation as of January 2026, so check the result on a pilot group before you promise anyone a clean inbox.

Turn Off Copilot in Windows 11

The Copilot app. Right-click it on the taskbar and choose Unpin from taskbar. If it opens at sign-in, switch it off in Settings, Apps, Startup. That's enough for a user who just wants it out of sight.

The Copilot key. Go to Settings, Personalization, Text input, and change Customize Copilot key on keyboard to Search or to another app. For a fleet, the Set Copilot Hardware Key policy sits under User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Copilot, and its CSP is ./User/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/WindowsAI/SetCopilotHardwareKey.

The old policy. You'll still find Turn Off Windows Copilot in older guides. Microsoft says it's subject to near-term deprecation and points admins to AppLocker instead, which blocks the app rather than switching it off. If you want the app gone, that's removal, and our guide to debloating Windows 11 covers the built-in app policies.

Turn Off Copilot in Edge

A user can hide the button with the Show Copilot toggle in Edge settings. For managed devices, set the Edge policy Microsoft365CopilotChatIconEnabled to 0 under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge, or disable it in the Edge settings in Intune.

Two details catch people out. The policy needs Edge 139 or later and applies only to Microsoft Entra work profiles, not to profiles signed in with a personal account. And from Edge 141, it's the only policy that controls Copilot in the toolbar: the older HubsSidebarEnabled setting hides the sidebar but no longer governs the Copilot button.

Push the Settings Across a Fleet

Every admin switch in this guide works on Windows 11 Pro, because each one is a Group Policy or a registry value. That matters for small clients without Enterprise licenses, where the Copilot removal policies don't apply.

Pick one delivery route and use it for all four. Intune can push the Office, Windows and Edge settings from one profile, and our Intune review covers where it fits. Without Intune, a script that writes the registry values works on any edition, and our list of PowerShell commands has the one-liners. OpenFrame runs scripts as bulk operations across devices, with an approval gate before anything changes.

Then check a device, not the policy report. A profile that applies cleanly proves nothing if Outlook shows the button again on Monday.

Turning Copilot off is four switches, not one. Start with the account type, because it decides whether a checkbox exists. Then use the connected experiences policy for the Office apps, the pinning setting for Outlook and Teams, the key policy for Windows and the icon policy for Edge. Check the result after every feature update.

If the ticket turns into "get rid of it completely," the Windows 11 debloat guide is the next read.