How to Hide Share, Follow and Sync Buttons in Sharepoint 2013

We got a requirement to remove Share, Follow and Sync buttons in SharePoint 2013. Let me summarize various ways to disable these buttons.

How to disable "Share" button in SharePoint 2013?
Share button is relying on "Access requests" configuration of the site. To disable "Share button" in SharePoint 2013, simply disable access requests.

• Go to Site settings page of your SharePoint site.
• Click on "Site Permissions" link under "Users and Permissions" group
• Click on "Access Request Settings" in the ribbon.
• Uncheck "Allow access request" and click on "Ok" to save your changes. This should hide Share button in SharePoint 2013.

Remember, You will have to do this change for each site! However, Share button will still be visible for Site owners and administrators!

How to Disable Sync buttons in SharePoint 2013
To disable sync, Navigate to  Site settings >> Click on "Search and offline availability" >> set offline client availability to "No". There are few more ways discussed in my another article: Hide Sync Button in SharePoint 2013

How to disable "Follow" button in SharePoint 2013?
To disable "Follow" button in SharePoint 2013, You'll have to disable a feature called "Following Content". Navigate to:

• Site Settings >> Click on "Manage Site Features"
• Click on "Deactivate" on " Following Content" feature

This removes following button in SharePoint 2013. If you want to disable "Following" feature at Farm level, disable "ContentFollowingStapling" feature at Farm features page in SharePoint 2013 Central Administration.

Disable Access Request, Deactivate Features using PowerShell:

• Share: To disable access requests on all sites using PowerShell, refer: Disable access request in SharePoint 2013
• Following: To deactivate "Following content" feature using PowerShell as:

  Disable-SPFeature -identity "FollowingContent" -URL "http://your-sp-site.com/" 

• Sync: To exclude from offline client, run:
  

  Get-SPSite -limit all | get-SPWeb -limit all | Foreach { $_.ExcludeFromOfflineClient=1; $_.Update()} 

Remove Share, Follow, Sync buttons at Master page level:

These promoted action buttons are in master page as follows:
Share Button:

<SharePoint:SPSharePromotedActionButton ID="SPSharePromotedActionButton1" runat="server" />

Follow Button:

<SharePoint:DelegateControl ID="DelegateControl2" runat="server" ControlId="PromotedActions" AllowMultipleControls="true" />

Sync Button:

<SharePoint:SPSyncPromotedActionButton ID="SPSyncPromotedActionButton1" runat="server" />

To hide these controls, simply move them inside Comment block. <!--  -->. Do not delete this controls from the Master page! You'll end-up in crash!!

CSS to hide Share, Follow and Sync Buttons:

Lets hide them based on their IDs. You can place this CSS code with "Script Editor" web part or you can place it in Master page.

• Sync button's id: ctl00_SyncPromotedAction
• Follow button id: site_follow_button
• Share button's id:  ctl00_site_share_button

<style type="text/css">

a[id$=site_share_button], a[id$=SyncPromotedAction], a#site_follow_button
{
    display: none !important;
} 

</style>

Tips: This hides Share button from promoted actions section. But share button is present in ECB/Callout menu and in list view quick control also. To hide them all as well, use selectors:  a[id$="site_share_button"], a.ms-calloutLink[title="Share"], button.js-listview-qcbShareButton.