How to Uninstall Xbox Game Bar (Windows 11)

Quick Tips

• By default, the Xbox Game Bar always tries to run as a background process, so preventing it from running it is the only way to remove it from the system.
• As an alternative, you can reassign the keyboard shortcut (“Win + G”) to do something else or remove it entirely, which will prevent you from accidentally opening it.
• You can update or redownload the Game Bar from Microsoft Store if you’re experiencing issues with it.

While the Xbox Game Bar has some undeniably cool capabilities, such as real-time recording, performance monitoring, advanced screen capture, and even in-game browsers, it’s still one more process that runs in the background. And unlike most processes, unless you disable it at system start, it will eat up a bit of CPU performance. For gaming, this can translate into a small but sometimes noticeable drop in FPS.

If you’re not really using this utility, here’s how to uninstall Xbox Game Bar (Windows 11 version).

Uninstall Xbox Game Bar (Windows 11) Step by Step

You can’t really uninstall Xbox Game Bar from Windows like you would any other program by going into the “add or remove programs” utility. This is because the Xbox Game Bar is technically an added background utility built into Windows. Instead, what you’ll need to do is prevent it from running in the background.

Step 1. Open the search bar and type in “program” or “remove program.” This should bring up “Add or remove programs” as the best match. Select that option. Alternatively, hit “Win + I” to enter Settings, select “Apps” from the sidebar, and choose the first option (“Installed Apps”).

Step 2. Scroll down and select “System components.”

Step 3. Click on the three dots on the “Game Bar” entry and select “Advanced options.”

Step 4. In the “Background component permissions” section, select the option “Never.”

Step 5. Scroll down and hit “Terminate” to remove the current Game Bar process.

Once you do this, the Game Bar process should stop running, and pressing its keyboard shortcut (“Win + G”) shouldn’t do anything.

Uninstall Xbox Game Bar Ffrom Windows via Console Commands

If preventing the background process doesn’t work and you can still get the bar to appear, you can terminate the process and remove its keybinding via PowerTools. Alternatively, you can use console commands to try to get the process out of the system entirely.

Step 1. Hit “Win + X” or right-click on the Start menu, then select “Terminal (Admin).” This opens the Windows PowerShell console.

Step 2. Paste the following command and hit “Enter” to get an overview of Xbox processes:

dism /Online /Get-ProvisionedAppxPackages | Select-String PackageName | Select-String xbox

Step 3. Run the following command (all at once, PowerShell will warn you about pasting multiple lines and select “Run anyway” or “Yes”):

dism /Online /Get-ProvisionedAppxPackages | `

Select-String PackageName | `

Select-String xbox | `

ForEach-Object {$_.Line.Split(‘:’)[1].Trim()} | `

ForEach-Object { dism /Online /Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage /PackageName:$_}

Step 3b. Alternatively, you can try the following command:

Get-ProvisionedAppxPackage -Online | `

Where-Object { $_.PackageName -match “xbox” } | `

ForEach-Object { Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage -Online -PackageName $_.PackageName }

Step 3c. Here’s another option that might work, depending on your current system build, which only removes the overlay (and then you can terminate the background process normally as in the previous fix):

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage

Step 4. Restart the PC.

Using Third-Party Uninstallers

In some cases, a third-party uninstaller might be able to see and uninstall Xbox Game Bar Windows 11 files that are typically locked to user access. However, not all uninstallers will have this option or be able to fully delete background utilities, so you may need to try a few different solutions (or pay for premium, which might not be worth the hassle).