How to Hide or Show Disabled Sound Devices in Settings on Windows 11
Hiding or showing disabled sound devices in Windows 11 lets you clean up your audio list by removing mics and speakers that are turned off. This setting controls what appears on the Settings›Sound›All sound devices page
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Starting with Windows 11 build 26340.9354 (Experimental 26H2) for Insiders, Microsoft added quick switches to hide or show disconnected and unplugged gear. You can turn this on or off in just a few clicks to keep your sound menu tidy.
⚡ Quick Answer
Open Settings›System›Sound›All sound devices and toggle the switch under Show devices for flow on this page. This lets you hide or show disabled audio input and output devices on your Windows 11 computer so your sound list stays clean or shows everything you need.
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Option One
Hide or Show Disabled Sound Devices in Settings
Open Settings ⚙️ by pressing the Win and the I key together (Win+I).
Click on System on the left side of the screen, and then click on Sound on the right side.
You can hide disabled sound devices in Windows 11 directly through the main sound settings menu to clean up your audio list. Open Settings ⚙️ by pressing the Win and the I key together (Win+I), click on System on the left side of the screen, and then click on Sound on the right side to change your view options.
Settings › System › Sound
Scroll down to the Advanced section and click on All sound devices.
Settings › Sound › All sound devices › System defaults
Look under System defaults and click on Show devices for flow on this page to open up the menu.
Turn the switch on if you want to show disabled audio devices, or turn it off if you want to hide them. Showing them is the default setting.
When you turn on the setting to show disabled devices, you will see them appear at the very bottom of the page in gray text.
You can now close the Settings ⚙️ window when you finish.
Option Two
Hide or Show Disabled Sound Devices in Settings using Registry Editor
You can hide or show disabled sound devices in Windows 11 using Registry Editor by opening the 🗝️HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Multimedia\Audio\DeviceCpl path and changing the ShowDisabledDevices value. Setting this value to one shows hidden audio gear, while changing it to zero hides disabled sound devices from your main list.
Summary
This tutorial showed you how to easily hide or show disabled sound devices in Windows 11 using either the main Settings app ⚙️ or the Windows Registry Editor.
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Richard is a writer at Geek Rewind who turns complex IT tasks into clear, step-by-step guides. He draws on years of hands-on experience in system administration and enterprise IT operations, focusing on Windows, Linux and WordPress: the problems people actually run into, and the fixes that work.
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