The context menu that appears when you right-click in the file system on your Mac contains an option called Services. What this option contains is a number of actions that you can perform on the selected files. From being able to resize images to creating an animated GIF using an Automator service, a number of tasks can be done with this option.
While the menu has gotten a number of services, you might want to delete a few of those that you no longer use. It will help you keep the context menu neat and clean and should also help you get to the services that you actually use often. Removing a service from the context menu is as easy as going into the preferences panel and unchecking an item.
Removing a Service from the Context Menu
You do not need a third-party app to get the job done.
Click on the Apple logo in the top-left corner and select “System Preferences…” to be taken to the system preferences panel of your machine.
When the Preferences panel opens, click on the option that says “Keyboard” as that is where the service items are located.
Inside Keyboard settings, click on the “Shortcuts” tab. Once there, click on “Services” in the left-hand side menu to list out all of the services that exist on your machine.
The right-hand side panel should show all of the services you can use with the context menu. What you need to do here is uncheck all of the services that you do not want to appear in the context menu, and they will be removed from there.
Keep in mind that these services are not going to be deleted. Instead, they will just be hidden, and you can enable them anytime you want by selecting the appropriate boxes in the panel shown below.
- You can now right-click on any item and select “Services” and see for yourself that the service that you unchecked above no longer appears in the menu.
If you would prefer to remove the self-created services entirely, then you can do so using the following steps.
Removing a Service Entirely from the Context Menu
Again, you do not need a third-party app to do this job.
Open Finder on your Mac (you can go to your desktop to do this), and select the “Go” menu followed by “Go to Folder…”
When Go to Folder launches, type in the following path and press Enter. It should take you to the directory where your self-created services are located.
You should be able to see all of the services you have created so far. To remove a service, simply right-click on it and select “Move to Trash.”
The chosen service should now be entirely removed from your Mac, and there is no way to get it back on your machine.
Conclusion
If there are services in your context menu that you no longer use and want to remove them, the above guide should help you do that on your machine.
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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