How do I disable Copilot?

[TruncatedDinoSour]

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Hi!

Copilot has appeared on my GitHub WebUI and I wanted to ask where can I disable it?

Thanks!

[emersion]

Couldn't find a way to disable it, wrote a userstyle to remove the garbage: https://userstyles.world/style/19894/disable-github-copilot

[andy3520]

I cannot access the link its always show 403, what happened?

[V2U-Services]

To disable Copilot in Visual Studio Code, go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X), then search for "GitHub Copilot" and click Disable. Alternatively, go to the settings (Ctrl+,), search for "Copilot," and turn it off globally or for specific file types. Restart VS Code to make sure the changes take effect.

[mcclure]

Okay, I searched in VSCode settings for "Copilot" and found this checkbox

When I unchecked the checkbox the Copilot menu disappeared from VSCode. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about the Copilot menu on github.com. I wound up blocking the website Copilot menu with uBlock Origin (fitting, because the Copilot menu is literally an advertisement).

Incidentally, I do not think I should have had to have unchecked the copilot menu box in VSCode. I think uninstalling the Copilot extension should have been enough to make it go away. I filed a bug about this.

[paweston70]

@mcclure

Switch to Codium - far better; you can properly disable copilot, rather than having it hang around in the background. There also seems to be less stupid changes. For instance, I can disable the trust settings (and before anyone says that I should be using it, all of my work is done on the inside of an intranet; I do not pull code from other sources except for documentation, all of the code I edit has been written by people on the inside of my organisation, unless we've recovered obvious snippets from somewhere like Stack Overflow). It honestly feels less bloated and still takes all of the usual plugins and extensions that work with VS Code (as it is based on VS Code in the first place).

[TruncatedDinoSour]

or vim my beloved

[mcclure]

@paweston70 , are you completely certain this checkbox is gone in up-to-date codium?

[paweston70]

Well, this search...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=does+vscodium+contain+copilot&atb=v390-1&df=y&ia=web

shows all hits for Copilot with VSCodium over the past year, and I cannot see anything except 'How to install Copilot'.

Further, when I search the settings in VSCodium for Copilot, nothing is displayed. Even when searching for 'ai' I do get a big list of settings, but nothing is there to reflect Copilot or any other AI.

Just try installing it. If it is there, then you can waggle your finger at me and say: 'I told you so'; I won't hold it against you. :-)

I will say that my version is from 3 weeks ago...

...but I haven't been notified of any updates as yet.

[bjoernager]

On https://github.com/settings/copilot/, there is an option titled Dashboard entry point. Setting this to Disabled removes the Copilot search bar from the front page for me.

[emersion]

Note, this option is not available when Copilot has never been enabled on an account.

[bjoernager]

For some reason it says it is enabled but this still works for me.

[bjoernager]

It seems it enabled Copilot Free when I clicked on the widget on the front page. My settings page looks like this:

[bjoernager]

I guess being sensational is rewarding them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[swaechter]

@TruncatedDinoSour I had the same issue: I never used Copilot and therefor saw the same page like you. Do one single Copilet search and afterwards you'll see the configuration options where you can disable everything :)

[peme969]

That does not work. Your post seems to be AI-generated which does not know the current GithubUI settings,etc…
Please triple double-check the AI-generated content before posting… 🙄

[shaedrich]

Almost ironic that an AI-generated message being wrong about turning AI off proves us even more right 😂

[shaedrich]

• Confirm any prompts

What can possibly go wrong? 😂

[martinwoodward]

Hey folks - I saw a few posts around this topic since we launched the free tier of Copilot so wanted to pull together some information on it. I completely understand the confusion a Copilot button appearing on your GitHub page might have caused and wanted to try and alleviate some of the concerns I've seen being raised.

Disabling Copilot in the Web

To hide GitHub Copilot UI on github.com, so that you don't see any Copilot chat prompts you disable GitHub Copilot in your settings https://github.com/settings/copilot. This will still work if you have never signed up for Copilot or even if a Copilot subscription was provided to you by your organization.

Disabling Copilot in the Editor

To switch off GitHub Copilot in VS Code, you can do that on a per file basis using the Copilot icon or you can turn it off globally there or even uninstall the extension if you wish. For more information please see the Enabling or Disabling GitHub Copilot in your Editor documentation.

Removing Copilot from the main homepage

When you go to the main github.com dashboard, you see a Copilot chat bar at the top. If you no longer want to see that select disable “Dashboard entry point” in your Copilot settings

Disabling GitHub Copilot Telemetry Collection

If you are using Copilot Free or Copilot Pro, prompts from your editor and Copilot’s suggestions are shared with GitHub to help improve suggestions and product features. For more information see our privacy statement. If you want to continue using Copilot but disable this telemetry collection, uncheck the box “Allow GitHub to use my code snippets from the code editor for product improvements” in your Copilot settings.

You will also see an option to allow GitHub, its affiliates and third parties to use your data, including Prompts, Suggestions, and Code Snippets, for AI model training. This is disabled for everyone at the moment as we do not currently perform AI model training on your Copilot usage. In the future we will allow developers to opt in to model training under certain circumstances but only if they want to do, this is disabled for everyone at the moment and cannot be enabled at this time.

Note that if you have your GitHub Copilot access provided to you via your company as a GitHub Copilot Business or Enterprise subscription then you will not see those setting as no prompt telemetry is collected and the policies around your usage are controlled by the organization administrator.

Blocking GitHub Copilot in your network

Enterprise network administrators have the ability to block GitHub Copilot traffic at the network level. The endpoints used by Copilot are different depending on the subscription level. Therefore it is possible to allow access for users with Business or Enterprise level (paid for by your organization), while blocking access for people using Pro or Free. For more information see Managing GitHub Copilot access to your organization's network

Hope that helps, and please keep the feedback coming.

Update: Dec 21,2024: Added details on the new (opt-in) model training setting for Copilot Pro and Free.
Update: Jan 18, 2025: Added details on the setting to disable Copilot UI in the web.

[shaedrich]

But at times locating the exact source might require beyond reason effort.

Only if the way you obtain data is questionable.

Are copyright laws necessarily just?

Sure, if you see profits as more important than people's data, you sure might find it unjust.

The technology has far greater potential.

quod esset demonstrandum

a compromise […] An interim solution to the unsolvable.

If the compromise is that AI companies do whatever they want with people's data and just need to pretend that there's no way they could do anything different, it's a foul compromise to begin with. Also, this is not how this should work: Potentially intentionally breaking the law for making profit because courts don't have the courage to make a definite decision on that.

[paweston70]

@MasterInQuestion - I think you may find that if an organisation feeds off a customer's data there may be an issue, particularly if there is sensitive code there.

The people who write the code are paid to write the code. The people who pay to have the code written expect the code to belong to them and be held secure (if that's what they're paying for). Whether there is legitimate right there or not, the organisation using the code for their own ends is certainly breaching the ethical trust of both the user and the company that pays them.

Besides, it could result in people walking away from such an organisation. There is no presidence in law, there, simply the potential fact.

I'm not an expert on AI law, but I did find this page which relates to the UK, definitely worth a read.

[WestieNHS]

As I detailed in an earlier response, there are ethical companies out there that will store your data without analysing it.

The sad fact is big organisations such as Microsoft eat up smaller concerns or get involved in the production of 'Open' software then distinctly close it or implement their own brand so heavily into the project that it becomes theirs.

[regalialong]

For those without a userstyles plugin but with uBO, removing the homepage UI elements (the chat thing and the button in the hotbar) is pretty easy right now:

! 18.12.2024 https://github.com
github.com##copilot-dashboard-entrypoint
github.com##.AppHeader-CopilotChat

Put this under "my Filters" in your Settings.

---

If anybody at Github actually cares, the value proposition is zero to net negative to me, even when for free. I've had very bad coding experiences with LLMs, they end up writing code that's either completely dysfunctional or so similar to the existing code written that I could have just copy pasted.

It fails at repetitive tasks that sounds simple for machines, like alphabetically sorting an enum (it removed some items from the enum).

With a human, I can reason about it in review at least.

This isn't really a defect of the LLM per-se, it's synthesizing text in the end.

[rdipardo]

! 18.12.2024 https://github.com
github.com##copilot-dashboard-entrypoint
github.com##.AppHeader-CopilotChat

[1fexd]

! Jan 13, 2025 https://github.com
github.com##.AppHeader-CopilotChat
github.com##li:has(> ul > li#query-builder-test-result-ask-copilot)
github.com##li.ActionList-sectionDivider[aria-hidden="true"]

github.com##div:has(> button[data-testid="copilot-ask-menu"])

github.com##div[data-test-id="copilot-actions-chat-button"]

github.com##div.dropdown-divider:has(+span[data-target="copilot-diff-entry.menuItemsSlot"])
github.com##span[data-target="copilot-diff-entry.menuItemsSlot"]

github.com##react-partial[partial-name="copilot-code-chat"]
github.com##div:has(> a[type="button"][href^="https://copilot-workspace.githubnext.com"])
! by RaptaG
github.com##.copilotPreview__container

Added some more

[Kreuger]

Thank you both!

[RaptaG]

! Jan 1, 2025 https://github.com
github.com##.AppHeader-CopilotChat
github.com##li:has(> ul > li#query-builder-test-result-ask-copilot)
github.com##li.ActionList-sectionDivider[aria-hidden="true"]

github.com##div:has(> button[data-testid="copilot-ask-menu"])

github.com##div[data-test-id="copilot-actions-chat-button"]

github.com##div.dropdown-divider:has(+span[data-target="copilot-diff-entry.menuItemsSlot"])
github.com##span[data-target="copilot-diff-entry.menuItemsSlot"]

github.com##react-partial[partial-name="copilot-code-chat"]
github.com##.copilotPreview__container

Removed the Copilot suggestions above "Home" with github.com##.copilotPreview__container

[Andre601]

If anybody at Github actually cares, the value proposition is zero to net negative to me, even when for free. I've had very bad coding experiences with LLMs, they end up writing code that's either completely dysfunctional or so similar to the existing code written that I could have just copy pasted.

It fails at repetitive tasks that sounds simple for machines, like alphabetically sorting an enum (it removed some items from the enum).

With a human, I can reason about it in review at least.

This isn't really a defect of the LLM per-se, it's synthesizing text in the end.

Also, unless this has been changed (which I doubt) does Copilot regularely violate copyleft licenses, by taking the code from a repository and posting it without credit, which often times is required by the project's license, even when modified...

[andy3520]

Short answer for who trying to remove the "free" bait from github copilot, currently there's no option to disabled it, they locked you up. In both WebUI and VScode. After I uninstalled the extension and restart the VSCode multiple times, its still showing up.

[softbeehive]

To me it looks like a dark pattern of luring users with the free bait and locking them with extra and no opt-out. I expect on/off switch for upsell products like copilot. Did microsoft manager came up with the idea of forever switch? You can refer to this comment: this is wrong because github infuriates customers by taking away control.

[1fexd]

I was given Copilot Pro access and after giving it a try via one of the many buttons scattered across all of Github, it proceeded to halucinate errors in my build pipeline which did not exist;

How do I remove Copilot Pro from my account and disable/hide all functionality across Github?

[rudiedirkx]

Right! How is copilot even worse than chatgpt!?

[jamescgibson]

@1fexd the only way I have found to remove copilot from your account is to open a ticket.

[paulshryock]

Do not want this nonsense.

[paweston70]

AI should remain separated from your IDE/repos - separation of BIG concerns.

[paweston70]

It's now part of both VS Code and VS 2022, forced via Git/Ms. (Apologies - I'm not having a go at you; I just don't like the forced nature of this crap).

[Kreuger]

Out of curiousity have you tried VS Codium? I wonder if it is implemented there.

[paweston70]

Out of curiousity have you tried VS Codium? I wonder if it is implemented there.

I did think about changing to this, but haven't tried it as yet.

[paweston70]

Okay - I've uninstalled VS Code and moved to Codium. It seems to be less bloaty altogether, than Code.

Thanks for the tip @Kreuger .

[Anutrix]

'Copilot in github.com' still says Enabled with no option to change. Is this intentional?
Do we need to stop using Github to not use copilot?

[shaedrich]

But these only hide the stuff visually if I'm not mistaken, don't they?

[TruncatedDinoSour]

But these only hide the stuff visually if I'm not mistaken, don't they?

Yes. That's the best we have at the moment.

[paweston70]

But these only hide the stuff visually if I'm not mistaken, don't they?

Yes, but the actual AI request only takes place via an API call, so the core of the AI program is not a piece of code attached to the current page (unless I'm mistaken).

To be honest, I don't even know why it is there (in this web interface), surely the best it can do for you is a search... Seems like it's a new toy that all website developers want to play with, or are maybe being forced to adopt (Microsoft). It's like sticking a yo-yo on a robot arm; yes it can probably do it, but ... why?!

[petoknm]

I can no longer even uncheck/disable options in those settings...

This must be a joke

Kooha-2025-01-04-15-29-37.mp4

[shaedrich]

How long until GitHub claims this was just another little mistake, we shouldn't worry about, but which would be so tremendously hard to fix for no reason at all? Seems like they've fully embraced asshole mentality. Enshittification ftw …

[Anutrix]

There's a select an option which might be reason for this bug. Try changing that to disable it maybe.

Maybe the code of this whole page is written via Co-Pilot.
I hope the irony in this isn't lost on the Github team who worked on this.

[shaedrich]

But is it a bug if it's intentional?

[shaedrich]

How very convenient to claim to be sincere if one only has to add a non-working button that would theoretically do what the user wants if it was working

[1fexd]

Did you use copilot to write this? This adds zero value while being overly verbose, literally all of it has already been said (https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/147437#discussioncomment-11634607)

[shaedrich]

People don't read comments anymore. That unfortunately happens regularly these days.

[jesus2099]

Here is a userstyle solution for Stylus, while waiting for the genuine OFF option:

https://github.com/xt0rted/github-nopilot

[wwahammy]

How do I just disable this entire thing? Seriously Github, stop shoving this junk into the UI; you're cluttering it up.

I don't want it hidden, it want it removed entirely.

[jaredcwhite]

Wow, it's amateur hour as Copilot infects everything on GitHub. Now there's a dumb icon in the navbar, which makes it so GitHub doesn't even fit on my iPhone screen—my avatar is almost pushed past the right edge. Way to go!

Again, HOW DO WE turn off all this crap? 😑

[izmyname]

I hope, at least, copilot will rewrite this horrible 'pending' system for PRs and add an option to remove entries from 'top repositories' menu, since the actual people behind the project are incapable to do so.

[stianjensen]

Sentry has understood this and they have a global setting to disable all AI features on your account:

[paweston70]

Remember, though, that there is usually more than a semantic difference between 'Hide' and 'Disable'. What telemetry is being pulled from your usage of the site? Is you code being harvested and used against your or your company's consent?

[stianjensen]

Good point. I would definitely prefer a full 'Disable AI features' setting!

[jaredcwhite]

😵‍💫 This does not bode well for the discussion at hand:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/amid-a-flurry-of-hype-microsoft-reorganizes-entire-dev-team-around-ai/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

[WestieNHS]

Wow! That's pretty damning. Basically every comment said they didn't want AI. The only way that we'll be able to make a change is to get our respective companies to ditch Microsoft. Once again, M$ are simply not listening.

[mmgolden]

I disabled the "show copilot" setting, but the copilot chat is still showing up under the pull request "files changed" tab even for organizations that don't have copilot enabled. It should be hidden everywhere.

[rudiedirkx]

I've been talking to support for weeks and all I hear is "there is no way to disable it, I will forward your feedback to the team".

[jamescgibson]

I fibbed slightly - I actually emailed @martinwoodward directly and he disabled it. Try emailing Martin? (His email is on his github profile).

[nabaxo]

I fibbed slightly - I actually emailed @martinwoodward directly and he disabled it. Try emailing Martin? (His email is on his github profile).

I just emailed github support, they disabled it fairly quickly.

[petoknm]

Yes, I have also made a support ticket a week or so back that ended up resolved as "sorry but we can't do anything about it", but after this comment, I opened another support ticket saying "I want the same" providing the link to the comment and they have finally disabled it. Please open new support tickets with a link to that same comment, it seems to work. Sad that this is a manual process at the moment, but that's Github's own oversight...

[mmgolden]

GitHub support disabled copilot for me. It would be nice if it could be disabled in github.com but still used in VS Code, but they said they couldn't do that.

[ProjectPhysX]

I found a way to disable Copilot on my GitHub account entirely:

1. Create a GitHub support ticket and complain that you want Copilot disabled on your account.
2. Wait a few days.
3. Done!
   

Bottom line, of course there is a (hidden) way to disable Copilot, because legally there has to be. @martinwoodward it's really shameful that Microsoft is being too evil and too incompetent to make this "disable" switch accessible to GitHub users. It's already very intrusive, and illegal under GDPR legislation, to enable Copilot and its data-scraping by default. Noone wants this stupid plagiarism machine. I hope so many users will now complain to GitHub support that it costs Microsoft enough money to be motivated to become a bit less incompetent and add the switch in the settings eventually.

[jeana-redhat]

I just made a ticket, and it.... first tried to "answer" with copilot. It generated a bunch of garbage text and then popped up an error saying it was too complex for copilot to answer "yet" (lol). Only then was I allowed to actually submit the ticket. Infuriating!

[shaedrich]

I'd doubt, GitHub is even legally allowed to use AI in their support forms without an option to disable it 🤔

[jamescgibson]

@shaedrich Where did you see this? @martinwoodward does "improve our products and services" include "use your data to improve the ai"? I assume yes - if so, shameful.

[shaedrich]

1. Click on the user menu in the top right navigation:
2. Click on the menu item "GitHub Support":
3. Click on "My tickets" in the top right navigation:
4. Click on "New ticket":
5. Click on "open a support ticket":
6. You'll navigate to https://support.github.com/contact?legacy&source=subtitle&tags=rr-general-technical
7. I didn't expect it to be that many clicks either 😂

[karianne50m]

To enable or disable GitHub Copilot, click the GitHub Copilot icon in the bottom panel of the Visual Studio window. If you are disabling GitHub Copilot, you will be asked whether you want to disable suggestions globally, or for the language of the file you are currently editing.

[shaedrich]

Question clearly states "GitHub WebUI"—reading thoroughly indeed is a skill

[TruncatedDinoSour]

id love to come out and say please domt spam github support with tickets to disable copilot ❤️ i understand that all of you are upset, but its unreasonable to overload github with tickets like that

other than that, im hoping for a true "disable github" button but lets just chill lol

im tired of this

good night

[shaedrich]

my goal was never to turn this thread into a source of people sending one another to spam support

it's mostly not even spam. Just a lot of people who want the same thing which cannot be achieved otherwise.

please, can we stay civil and calm, and not lose our heads over a button

It's not about the button. The button is just the symptom, not the cause. It's about how GitHub is treating this.

I can totally understand when information is withheld from the customer due to it being confidential, but when your employer/superior asks you to outright lie to the customer, this should be a major red flag and a good reason to run as fast and as far as you can, assuming one has morals.

[TruncatedDinoSour]

hi thanks yall ive added yalls feedback to our chat ill keep yall updated if anything big happens :) i hope by the end of this there will be an explicit option for everyone, not just the ones using copilot ( is there an option like that even ? idk i havent used copilot but i dont want it xD, but id assume there has to be ?? ), until then, keep the feedback coming <3

[ProjectPhysX]

@TruncatedDinoSour It's not just "a" button. The lack of this button means that Microsoft will plagiarize all of our software. The button being absent is illegal in the EU, and it is a massive violation of copyright law. It is not a mistake, but a deliberate evil decision by Microsoft.

Without this button, spamming GitHub support is the only way for users to defend themselves from the Copilot plagiarism machine. Microsoft made up that problem themselves. They have to live with the consequences. Spam spam spam them until their managers get it.

[Anutrix]

What does it mean when they say Co-pilot is 'Enabled' like an read-only option in settings section?

[shaedrich]

I asked Martin to explain this quite a few day ago—he still owes us an explanation.

[jamescgibson]

The difference here is using developer's IP to replace them.

If someone invents a better mousetrap, c'est la vie. If someone breaks into my house, takes my mousetrap, and pretends they invented it - that's no good.

If Microsoft / Github weren't so dependent on additional information from developers, they would make it easy to disable.

[featuriz]

Github.com forcing me to look for an alternative.

Will copilot suggest me a good one?
Hay copilot "what is the best alternative for github.com"

THIS IS GITHUB.COM FALL

[bartekpacia]

Why the f*ck is "Copilot in GitHub.com" Enabled and doesn't let me disable this?

And on the GitHub frontpage, these stupid search field and 2 buttons take up space.

Never, absolutely never in my life have I ever went to GitHub frontpage to ask "what is a hash table in JS".

Let me disable this garbage.

[ProjectPhysX]

Microsoft deliberately don't allow you to disable this garbage, so that their managers can claim "everyone is using GitHub Copilot" and not get fired when actual user statistics would reveal their incompetence.
To get GitHub Copilot disabled on your account, you have to complain to GitHib support.

[alvvaro]

Hi @martinwoodward, there seems to be a sync problem between the GitHub website and the app. The value of the setting to hide Copilot was not reflected on the app, for me at least. Had to manually switch it again.

Also you guys might also review the copy and the semantics here, cause they are a bit messy: the same option makes Copilot visible, shown, enabled, and available; one is "Show Copilot", the other is "Hide Copilot"; the toggle being off meaning Copilot is on, …

[shaedrich]

Martin still hasn't explained to us why there are two options he claims to be identical:
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/147437#discussioncomment-11875399

In other words: GitHub becomes entangled in a web of lies to rectify forcing their AI on us.

[DanielEScherzer]

@TruncatedDinoSour since this pops up when you do a search for disabling copilot, including under "These resources might be helpful" when filing a support ticket, can I suggest changing the accepted answer from the current https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/147437#discussioncomment-11628636 (which is about how to hide certain elements) to something like https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/147437#discussioncomment-11988032 or https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/147437#discussioncomment-11932421 (and subsequent replies)? I saw that you commented at https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/147437#discussioncomment-12012415 not to "spam github support with tickets", and "spam[ming]" tickets would be wrong, but the actual answer to "How do I disable copilot" is "File a github support request and have the support team disable it for you".

[revolunet]

CoPilot broke my GitHub UX; it freeze my browser for no reason when i open a GitHub tab.

In my settings i just have Copilot "enabled" without a way to turn it off.

What about let users choose when they need copilot or not ?