Drupal Core Sets Navigation as Default Admin Experience in Place of Toolbar

Drupal core has committed a change that makes the Navigation module the default administrative navigation experience in place of the Toolbar for the Standard profile and recipes. The related core issue, “Add Navigation to the Standard profile and recipes,” is marked fixed on Drupal.org, with commits logged on both the main branch and 11.x on 3 March 2026.

The change matters because the Standard profile and recipes define the default setup that many new Drupal sites inherit. Moving Navigation into that default configuration means new installations will use the newer admin navigation system rather than the long-standing Toolbar module.

Navigation first appeared as an experimental module in Drupal 10.3, introducing a collapsible vertical sidebar designed for the administrative interface. The module includes submenu drawers for deeper navigation levels, support for custom menus, and layout tools that allow site builders to add or reorder menu blocks.

The broader roadmap for the feature has been to replace Toolbar with Navigation and a related top bar experience once the remaining stable-blocking work is complete. A Drupal core planning issue describes that effort as the path to making the new Navigation and Top Bar the stable replacement for the existing Toolbar.

The newly fixed task is also tagged on Drupal.org as a release highlight for both 11.4.0 and 12.0.0, indicating that the work affects both the current development branch and planning for the next major version. That makes the change significant not only as a user interface update but also as a shift in Drupal core’s default administrative experience.

The source material describes Navigation as more customisable and faster to use for deeper administration trees. Drupal’s earlier product description supports part of that framing by noting that the module accommodates deeper navigation levels through full-height drawers and allows menu and logo customisation, though performance claims are not independently quantified in the cited issue materials.

More information about the change and its implementation is available on the official Drupal.org issue page.