SharePoint 2013: Removing Links (SkyDrive/Newsfeed/Follow/Sync/Share and Edit links)

There are some links on SharePoint 2013 that may not be required by your company and could potentially cause confusion for your users. There are ways to hide these links using Javascript but I propose editing your master page. 2 years ago, if I came across this post about editing my masterpages, I would have ran for the hills! I didn't understand it so I didn't go near it. But editing your masterpage is simple, this will not have any negative affects on your users either as we are going to create a copy of your master page and test it out on a test site collection or a dev environment. Do not publish a master page to your live site without testing it! I will not be responsible!!! :)

Hiding the Newsfeed/Skydrive/Sites links

Social side of things might not be ready to be launched in your company OR they might not be something that you particularly want or require. So you might want to hide these options for now. These links are called DeltaSuiteLinks. To hide them, you just need to comment out a piece of code in your master page. Again, copy copy copy the original!!!!

1. Create a copy of your master page by clicking on the wheel on the top right of your page and going to "Site Settings"
2. Under "Web Designer Galleries", click on "Master Pages"
3. Find your master page, by default, this is usually seattle.master
4. Click on this and select "Download a Copy", you can download a copy to your machine if you like
5. Right click on this file on your machine and choose "Edit", this may open in Notepad but you can certainly edit this in any editor of your choice.
6. You then need to comment out the following block of code. My code below is already commented
7. Save your changes.
8. Then follow steps 1-2 above and upload your new master page to it
9. Click on the ellipses beside the file and choose "Publish a Major Version"
10. Click on the ellipses again and choose "Approve/Reject" and then approve this master page.
11. Then you need to enable this on your live site, you can do this by going to Site Settings again and under "Look and Feel", select "Master Page"
12. Select your new master page name from the dropdown menu on both areas and click ok!
13. Hey presto, those links are now gone. I will be looking into how to replace these with your own links as it does leave a nasty white space :)

Hiding the "Edit Links" option from the Global Navigation
Let's face it, you don't want to give people too much power do you? Editing links on the Global Nav to me and our business anyway, it's a big no no. Users have very little control over this kind of thing. They can edit their content, but they cannot do something like edit the Global Nav! Are you crazy!?

Anyway, this is easy, you just need to add a little bit of code to your master page and follow the steps in the section above to publish it. You need to follow steps 1-5, then add the code below and then follow steps 7-13 to implement it :)

Hiding the "Share/Follow/Sync" Commands
These lovely things are called the "PromotedActions". Again if you are not ready to go hell for leather on the social thing, you might want to hide these. Follow my steps in the first section again from 1-5 and then comment out the code below, then follow steps 7-13! Hey presto! :) :)

Good luck! I didn't run into any problems with this but please comment below if you have any issues, it may help someone else. Also, I will be updating with a new post shortly about how to put your own DeltaSuiteLinks in instead! :) Happy SharePoint :) :)