Customizing VSCode UI: Hide Activity Bar and Minimap with Apc Customize UI++

Many VSCode users find the Activity Bar on the left and the minimap on the right visually distracting. Removing these elements can make the editor look cleaner.

The easiest way is to install the Apc Customize UI++ extension from the VSCode marketplace and add a few settings to your settings.json file.

Key configuration snippets:

{
  "apc.activityBar": {
    "position": "bottom",
    "size": 40,
    "itemSize": 30,
    "itemMargin": 3
  },
  "apc.statusBar": {
    "position": "editor-bottom",
    "height": 40,
    "fontSize": 14
  },
  "window.titleBarStyle": "native",
  "apc.electron": {
    "frame": false // set to true to keep the title bar
  },
  "window.customTitleBarVisibility": "never",
  "breadcrumbs.enabled": false,
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
  "apc.parts.font.family": {
    "sidebar": "JetBrains Mono",
    "titlebar": "JetBrains Mono",
    "activityBar": "JetBrains Mono",
    "panel": "JetBrains Mono",
    "tabs": "JetBrains Mono",
    "statusbar": "JetBrains Mono",
    "settings-body": "JetBrains Mono",
    "extension-editor": "JetBrains Mono",
    "monaco-menu": "JetBrains Mono"
  }
}

After saving the file, VSCode will prompt you to restart; the UI changes take effect after the restart.

If you still want to keep the window title bar, set apc.electron.frame to true .