How to remove the focus from a TextBox in WinForms?

You need some other focusable control to move the focus to.

Note that you can set the Focus to a Label. You might want to consider where you want the [Tab] key to take it next.

Also note that you cannot set it to the Form. Container controls like Form and Panel will pass the Focus on to their first child control. Which could be the TextBox you wanted it to move away from.

Try disabling and enabling the textbox.

Focus sets the input focus, so setting it to the form won't work because forms don't accept input. Try setting the form's ActiveControl property to a different control. You could also use Select to select a specific control or SelectNextControl to select the next control in the tab order.

I've found a good alternative! It works best for me, without setting the focus on something else.

Try that:

private void richTextBox_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{    
    e.SuppressKeyPress = true;
}

It seems that I don't have to set the focus to any other elements. On a Windows Phone 7 application, I've been using the Focus method to unset the Focus of a Textbox.

Giving the following command will set the focus to nothing:

void SearchBox_KeyDown(object sender, System.Windows.Input.KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Key == Key.Enter)
    {
        Focus();
    }
}

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control.focus.aspx

It worked for me, but I don't know why didn't it work for you :/

You can try:

textBox1.Enable = false;

using System.Windows.Input

Keyboard.ClearFocus();

Kinda late to the party in 2022, however none of the solutions here worked for me (idk why) using .Net_6.0_windows, so I've come up with this solution:

Label focusoutLabel = new Label() { 
    Text = "",
    Name = "somegenericplaceholdernamethatwillneverbeusedinmyprogram",
    Visible = false,
};
this.Controls.Add(focusoutLabel);
this.ActiveControl = focusoutLabel;

^Place this code to your Form load handler^

In the constructor of the Form or UserControl holding the TextBox write

SetStyle(ControlStyles.Selectable, false);

After the InitializeComponent(); Source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/4811938/5750078

Example:

public partial class Main : UserControl
{

    public Main()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        SetStyle(ControlStyles.Selectable, false);
    }