How to edit the share menu options on macOS

Sharing has become a basic need whether you’re on a desktop or on a mobile device. Apps that can share files can pick them from anywhere on your disk however, it’s much easier if you can share files without actually opening the app. This is fairly easy to manage; if you right-click a file on macOS, you will see a Share menu with options for sharing the file. Apps normally add themselves to the share menu so it can get crowded. Here’s how you can edit the share menu on macOS.

Edit share menu

You can edit the share menu on macOS from System Preferences. Open System Preferences and select Extensions. On the Extensions preference, select the Share menu in the column on the left. The pane on the right will show you all the options that you see in the share menu.

Uncheck the options you want to remove, and check the ones you want to add. Some options, such as the Mail and Messages options can’t be unchecked. This is because they’re stock apps and as such, they are an integral part of the share menu.

Any change you make to this menu is applied right away and it’s applied for all files. Normally, the share menu will only show you relevant options that apply to a file e.g., the Add to Reading List option won’t appear when you right-click on an image so you don’t have to worry about the share menu being crowded. That said, when you add or remove an option to the Share menu, it will appear for all files that it applies to. You cannot exclude the option for certain files, and include it for others.

The options that appear on the Extensions preference are for apps that support the share menu on macOS. If an app doesn’t support the share menu, you cannot force it to appear in this list. As for the stock apps and their sharing options, there’s no way to force them out either. They’re all mostly apps that you cannot uninstall from macOS e.g., the Messages app so they will be appearing in the share menu whether you like it or not.

There’s no way to change the order the items appear in, in the share menu. They will appear in the order they were added and not in alphabetical order. On iOS, you can easily change the order the items in the share and action sheet appear in but macOS doesn’t have a similar option.

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Fatima Wahab

Fatima has been writing for AddictiveTips for six years. She began as a junior writer and has been working as the Editor in Chief since 2014. Fatima gets an adrenaline rush from figuring out how technology works, and how to manipulate it. A well-designed app, something that solves a common everyday problem and looks

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