How to Hide Gemini AI Buttons in Google Docs, Sheets, and Gmail
If you're tired of sparkle icons and 'Help me write' prompts taking over your Google Workspace, here's how to remove them for good.
Google has been steadily adding Gemini AI entry points across Docs, Sheets, Gmail, Drive, and Slides — sparkle icons in the toolbar, “Help me write” panels, side-panel promos, and inline suggestion prompts. If you don’t use them, they’re not neutral: they take up toolbar space, add visual noise, and occasionally insert themselves into your writing flow at exactly the moment you’re trying to concentrate.
Why “just ignore it” doesn’t really work
The usual advice for unwanted UI is to just ignore it — but that only works for elements that stay still. Gemini prompts in Workspace apps aren’t static; new ones get added over time, and some appear contextually (e.g. a “Help me write” nudge appearing mid-document) rather than sitting in a fixed spot you can mentally filter out once. That makes this a case where actually removing the elements is more effective than training yourself to ignore them.
What needs to be covered for this to actually work
A partial fix — say, one that only hides the main toolbar icon — misses most of the surface area, since Gemini prompts show up in several different places across Workspace:
- The main Docs/Sheets/Slides toolbar sparkle icon and its dropdown.
- Gmail’s compose-window AI suggestions.
- Drive’s file-browser AI promos and summaries.
- Contextual inline prompts that appear as you type, which need to be caught in real time since they aren’t part of the initial page load.
Removing it without breaking anything else
GeminiFade targets exactly this surface: Gemini AI buttons, panels, and promos across Docs, Sheets, Gmail, Drive, and Slides, including prompts that appear dynamically after the page has already loaded (not just what’s present on initial load). A few details make it safe to use long-term rather than a one-time cleanup:
- One-click master toggle — turn the whole thing off instantly if you need to see the hidden UI for a specific reason (say, a colleague asking you to try a Gemini feature).
- Visibility into what was hidden — you can see exactly which elements were removed and undo any specific one with a click, rather than it being an opaque blanket removal.
- Search and filter across hidden elements, useful once you’ve been using it for a while and want to check what’s currently being suppressed.
- Lightweight by design — it only watches for and removes specific elements, so it doesn’t add noticeable load time to Docs, Sheets, or Gmail.
A quieter Workspace
Most people install this once, forget about it, and just notice that their Workspace apps feel calmer — the toolbar looks the way it did before Gemini icons were added, and nothing interrupts a writing session with an AI suggestion prompt. If Google adds a new placement for a Gemini entry point later, the detection is designed to catch new AI prompts in real time rather than needing you to update a hardcoded list.
