If you have a congested taskbar in Windows 10, chances are you must get annoyed at all those extra app and system icons. Learn how to hide the ones you don’t need, and reduce clutter in the process.
If your Taskbar looks like this, you seriously need to better organize it, and wonder how did you ever get to this point?
You can take back control of the items in your taskbar by choosing which items to display or hide through a system setting. You don’t even need to install a third-party application or anything. The option is available to you right on the taskbar and only takes seconds for one to find and get started. The only prerequisite for this guide is being on the Anniversary Update of Windows 10, you won’t see the options prior to it.
Keep in mind that this will only HIDE these icons from your taskbar. They will still continue running in the background and as such won’t save you on system resources or other perfomance boosts.
We can consider this towards the cosmetic side of improving Windows 10.
Manage taskbar system tray icons in Windows 10
To get started, click on an empty space on your taskbar and select “Settings” at the very bottom.
You will now have a new page open. Scroll down until you see the green highlighted option of “Select which icons appear on the taskbar“.
We are now in the place where you simply have to choose between which apps you want or don’t want to see in the taskbar by simply switching the toggle of each app to the relevant position. (On or Off).
Once you are content with what you have done with the toggle switches, you need only to leave the menu by closing the window and your changes will be applied as soon as you have finished tinkering with the relevant toggle switches.
Keep in mind that this will only affect third-party applications on your Windows taskbar, i.e. applications that aren’t with the OS such as Battle.net, Steam, Google Chrome, etc.
There is similar way of managing the system icons that appear in the taskbar, which we will cover in a future guide. It will help hide system icons such as the clock, Windows Ink Workspace, etc.
If you are truly a litter bug when it comes to applications running in your taskbar, please let us know in the comments section, bonus points for sharing screenshots of your before / after clearing of the clutter in the taskbar.