Microsoft removed Mica from Edge, but you can still enable it

The recent Microsoft Edge update made the browser look quite ugly on Windows 11, but the removed effect still sort of works. Here is how to bring it back.

Microsoft Edge logo

The recently released Microsoft Edge 138 brought bad news for Windows 11 users who like the Mica material. The browser no longer lets you enable Windows 11 materials across various surfaces, such as the tab strip, context menus, and more. Frankly, Edge looks pretty dull right now, and some even argue that it looks ugly. However, at this point, not all hope is lost, and you can still sort of enable Mica in Microsoft Edge.

While the "Show Windows 11 visual effects in title bar and toolbar" flag is still available in edge://flags, toggling it on does not do anything. As such, turning on Mica in Edge requires taking another route and modifying the browser's shortcut with a special command. Here is how to do it:

Go to Settings > System and Performance > System and turn off Startup Boost if enabled.
Close Microsoft Edge.
Right-click your Microsoft Edge shortcut and select Properties.
Click the Path box, place one space and add the following command: --enable-features=Windows11MicaTitlebar.
Click Ok to save changes and start the browser.

It is worth noting that this implementation is not the best, and it only applies to the tab strip (partially). That is because the command uses the basic Mica implementation from Chromium, which was added to the project quite a while ago. Google experimented with Mica in Chrome, but it remains turned off by default for all users. If you miss this material, you can bring it back using this method. It is far from perfect, of course, but unfortunately, that is all we have at this point.

Another thing worth mentioning is that this trick is a no-go for users with vertical tabs. Combining "Windows11MicaTitlebar" with vertical tabs turns the user interface into a complete mess if the title bar is turned off.

Source: Reddit