Remove Search bar from the Title Bar in Office 365 apps

Kindly bear in mind, the steps outlined in the post will not actually remove the Microsoft Search bar completely from Office 365 Title Bar completely. Instead, it will shrink the size or collapse it down to just a magnifying glass icon. To do this: Please note that with the Microsoft Search Box collapsed you can still access it by clicking on the Magnifying glass icon or simply pressing Alt+Q in combination.

1] Launch Office 365 application

Open an Office 365 application like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint or Excel, For convenience purposes, I chose Microsoft Word.

When the application opens, you can find the Microsoft Search bar located at the center of the Title bar.

2] Access Word Options Menu

Go to the ‘File’ tab of Ribbon menu and click it. Thereafter, from the list of options displayed, select ‘Options’. When the Word Options window opens, go to the ‘User Interface options’ section in the right-pane.

To hide the Microsoft Search bar from the Title bar, locate ‘Collapse the Microsoft Search box by default’ option.

When found, simply check the box and hit the ‘Ok’ button. Once done, only a Search (visible as a magnifying glass) icon will show in the application header. To confirm the change, go back to your document and see if the Search is visible just as an icon or a bar displayed at the center.

As you can see in the image above we have successfully managed to hide the Search bar from Title bar. That’s all there is to it!