Have you noticed a weird icon in Windows 10/11 search bar? Don’t worry, this is – supposedly – a new search improvement from Microsoft called Search Highlights.
Search Highlights are designed to present you with remarkable, informative and interesting information about what is special about each day – such as holidays, anniversaries and other times both globally and locally. Plus, if you’re signed in to Windows 10/11 with your work or school Office 365 account, search highlights will help you easily locate your organization’s files and contacts by simply typing everything related to your organization in Search bar.
By default Search highlights are enabled and appears as an icon on the taskbar’s search box or, after clicking the search box, at the right of search home page.
How to Disable Search Highlights icon – information on Windows 10/11?
If you’re an individual user and don’t want Search Highlights to appear on your Windows 10/11 search bar, you can easily turn them off, by following the below instructions
1. Right-click on the taskbar and go to Search and click the Show search highlights option to turn off the Search highlights in bot the search bar and the search home page.
* Note: Follow the same steps to turn on Search highlights.
How to Disable Search Highlights in your Organization or via Group Policy?
If you own Windows 10/11 Pro or Education version, or if you want to turn-off Search Highlights for all users in your organization via Group Policy, follow the below instructions:
1. Press simultaneously the Windows 
+ R keys to open the run command box.
2. Type gpedit.msc & press Enter to open the Group Policy Editor.
3. In group policy editor navigate to:
- Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search > Allow search highlights
4. Open the Allow search highlights policy and set it to Disabled. *
* Info: Disabling this setting turns off search highlights in the taskbar search box and in search home. Enabling or not configuring this setting turns on search highlights in the taskbar search box and in search home.
That’s all folks! Did it work for you?
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