Change the default fields (columns) in contact search results

Question

Very frequently I get users asking if we can remove Address/City/State/Postal/Country columns from the default search results table. Often they want to show some of our custom fields instead. Or to just remove clutter.

I know this is a common question, and I am aware of hook_civicrm_searchColumns and how to use profiles with advanced search.

But I am asking here to get verification that there is not a better way to simply remove some columns from the results of civicrm/contact/search

Answer 1

There is a non-code fix for this:

You could make a profile with the fields you want to display.

And then you search using Advanced Search, and you could select that profile in the "display result as".

Edit: As pointed out by Philipp Michael in the comments below, you could also choose a certain profile as the default one, in the admin settings ( at /civicrm/admin/setting/search?reset=1.)