Taskbar

The Taskbar is centered by default and simplified in Windows 11, but it looks and works much like those in previous Windows versions, and it remains a key way to launch frequently-used apps.

Defaults

The Windows 11 Taskbar is confined to the bottom edge of the screen, and though you can resize the icons it displays, the Taskbar has a fixed size. Microsoft configures the Taskbar with a default set of buttons and other controls that span the width of this interface along the bottom of the screen, below the Desktop. These include:

• Widgets, a Taskbar item found at the far left (unless you change the Taskbar alignment)
• Start button, to open Start
• Search and Task view Taskbar items
• File Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Store, Microsoft Copilot or Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Microsoft Outlook app icon shortcuts
• Up to three optional shortcuts provided by your PC maker
• Click to Do shortcut (Copilot+ PC only)
• System tray area with status notification icons, Network, Volume, and Power quick setting icons, time/date display, and a (well-hidden) Show desktop button

Customize the Taskbar

The Taskbar is customizable, with its configuration capabilities split between two places: Taskbar settings–in the Settings app at Personalization > Taskbar–and through the Taskbar itself with certain items that support direct manipulation.

Tip: You can also access Taskbar settings by right-clicking an empty area on the Taskbar and choosing “Taskbar settings” from the small context menu that appears.

Determine which items appear in the Taskbar

You can customize almost all the items appear in the Taskbar. Oddly, some Taskbar items are configured in Taskbar settings, while others can be directly added (pinned) or removed (unpinned).

Tip: The Start button is unique in that it can’t be disabled, moved, or changed in any way.

Widgets

The Widgets item appears at the far-left side of the Taskbar and opens the Widgets board when you hover over it with the mouse cursor (by default) or click it.

Tip: If you left align the Taskbar as described below, the Widgets item appears to the left of the system tray area.

If you don’t need this display, you can hide the Widgets item from the Taskbar and use its keyboard shortcut, noted below, to display the Widgets board instead. To do so, open Taskbar settings and configure the “Widgets” setting under “Taskbar Items” to “Off.”

Keyboard shortcut: Type Windows Key + W to display Widgets.

Learn more: The Widgets item can display a weather forecast, notifications, and other information. You can customize Widgets to not open on hover or to not display notifications, in which case it will only display the weather forecast. You can learn more in the Widgets chapter.

Start button

The Start button is used to open the Windows 11 Start menu, and it cannot be removed from the Taskbar or modified in any way.

Keyboard shortcut: You can also display Start by tapping the Windows key on your keyboard or by typing Windows Key + X.

If you right-click the Start button, the Quick link menu will appear, providing access to a handy list of technical and legacy Windows utilities. This feature cannot be customized.

Search

The Search item on the Taskbar displays as a Search box by default, but you can configure it to display as a Search icon with a label or a Search icon, or you can simply hide it. Here is how each configuration looks.

To configure this item, open Taskbar settings and click the drop-down next to “Search” in the “Taskbar items” section.

A> Keyboard shortcut: Type Windows Key + S to display Search.

Task view

The Task view item in the Taskbar can be accessed via an easily-remembered keyboard shortcut, so I recommend hiding it. You do so in the “Taskbar items” section in Taskbar settings.

Keyboard shortcut: Type Windows Key + Tab to display Search.

App shortcuts

You can add (pin) shortcuts for the apps you use the most to the Taskbar, remove (unpin) app shortcuts that Microsoft or your PC maker placed in the Taskbar, and arbitrarily change the location of any app shortcut by dragging and dropping with the mouse cursor. This all happens directly on the Taskbar itself.

Remove (unpin) an app shortcut from the Taskbar. To unpin a Taskbar app shortcut, right-click it and choose “Unpin from taskbar” from the context menu that appears. It will be removed without a confirmation.

Add (pin) an app shortcut to the Taskbar. To pin a shortcut for an app to the Taskbar, locate a shortcut for it in Start’s Pinned or All section, right-click it, and choose “Pin to taskbar” from the context menu that appears.

Change the location of an app shortcut on the Taskbar. To change the location of a Taskbar app shortcut, just grab it with the mouse cursor and drag it left or right to the desired location.

Tip: Oddly, you cannot drag an app shortcut up off the Taskbar to unpin it.

System tray

The system tray area of the Taskbar–sometimes still called the notification area or system notification area–displays various status notification icons, some of which can be hidden in an overflow pop-up accessed by clicking the chevron icon at the far left of the system tray, three quick settings icons–“Network,” “Volume,” and “Power”–a time/date display, and, much less obviously, a tiny “Show desktop” button. Most of these items can be hidden or changed in some way.

Status notification icons. You can drag and drop individual status notification icons within the overflow pop-up to rearrange them if you’d like. More interestingly, you can drag and drop icons out of the overflow pop-up and place them to the left of the quick settings icons so you can always see them right on the Taskbar. And you can customize which icons appear here in Taskbar settings > Other system tray icons.

Quick settings buttons. You can’t customize the “Network,” “Volume,” and “Power” quick settings icons in any way. If you click any of these icons, the Quick settings panel will appear. If you right-click one, it will display a list of options specific to that feature.

Time/date. The date/time display opens the Notification center panes when clicked. But it’s also surprisingly customizable, and you can even hide it if desired. You configure this interface and related date and time settings in the Settings app by navigating to Time & language > Date & time. The “Show time and date in the system tray” option can be used to hide the time/date display. Or you can expand it and enable “Show seconds in the system tray clock (uses more power)” and find options to display additional clocks.

Tip: You can open Date & time settings even more quickly by right-clicking the date/time display in the Taskbar and choosing “Adjust date and time” from the context menu that appears.

Keyboard shortcut: You can also display the Notification center by typing Windows Key + N.

Show desktop. It’s well hidden and difficult to see, but there is a small “Show desktop” button at the far right of the Taskbar, to the right of the date and time display. You can click it to toggle the display state of all of your open apps and other windows; when you do so, all open apps and windows will immediately minimize, displaying the Desktop. And when you click “Show desktop” again and all of those same apps and windows will be restored to their previous open state, location, and size. You can hide the “Show desktop” buttons in Taskbar settings using the “Select the far corner of the taskbar to show the desktop” option under “Taskbar behaviors.”

Customize key Taskbar behaviors

The Windows 11 Taskbar offers several useful settings you can configure in Taskbar settings > Taskbar behaviors.

Taskbar alignment. By default, Taskbar alignment is set to “Center,” but you can change it to “Left” if you want the Taskbar and Start menu to be aligned on the left.

Automatically hide the taskbar. By default, the Taskbar remains fixed to the bottom of the screen, but you can use this option to hide the Taskbar when you’re not interacting with it. To access a hidden Taskbar, just mouse down to the bottom edge of the screen and it will slide up and become visible.

Keyboard shortcut: You can also display the Taskbar when it’s hidden by pressing Windows Key + T.

Show badges on taskbar apps. The Taskbar shortcuts for some Windows apps can display an overlay called a badge that acts as a notification that something in the app requires your attention. You might have an unread email message, for example, as seen by the badge on the Microsoft Outlook icon below.

Show flashing on taskbar apps. Some Windows apps flash their Taskbar shortcut icon when something happens, like a notification. This feature is enabled by default, but you can disable it if desired.

Share any window from my taskbar. This feature only works with the Work or School version of Microsoft Teams, and not the version that comes with Windows 11. It lets you mouse over the app’s Taskbar button during a meeting and access a “Share this window” button in its thumbnail pop-up. You can ignore or disable this option if you don’t use that app.

Combine Taskbar buttons and hide labels. By default, the Taskbar displays a single shortcut for each pinned app pinned it contains, and these shortcuts do not include a text label. But you can configure the Taskbar to display a separate shortcut for each app window, each with its own text label that’s displayed when that app is open. To do so, configure “Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels” to “When taskbar is full” or “Never.”

Show smaller taskbar buttons. Perhaps the strangest Taskbar behavior settings, this will make the Taskbar items and pinned app shortcut icons smaller, though the height of the Taskbar remains unchanged.

Customize the Taskbar for multiple displays

If you have two or more displays connected to your PC, you can configure how the Taskbar works across them. There are three relevant options in Settings > Personalization Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors that become available when you’re using two or more displays. You should consider each.

Show my taskbar on all displays. This works like “Automatically hide the taskbar” but for secondary displays. It’s enabled by default, but if you disable it, the Taskbar will disappear on secondary displays.

When using multiple displays, show my taskbar apps on. By default, this is set to “All taskbars,” so the Taskbar layout will be identical on each display. But you can change this to “Main taskbar and taskbar where window is open” or “Taskbar where window is open” if you prefer. I happen to like that latter setting.

Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels on other taskbars. This is obviously related to the “Combine Taskbar buttons and hide labels” option noted above, but it gives you a way to configure the Taskbar differently on the primary and secondary displays. For example, you may wish to configure “Combine Taskbar buttons and hide labels” to “Always” on the primary display but to change this option to “Never” or “When the taskbar is full” so that it works differently on the other displays.

Understand the Windows 11 Taskbar

Microsoft rewrote the Taskbar for Windows 11, so it is more modern than the Taskbar in previous versions, but also simpler and missing a few features that many came to rely on. As bad, customizing the Taskbar can be inconsistent as noted earlier in the chapter. For example, you can unpin or move app shortcuts directly on the Taskbar, but you can’t reposition the Widgets, Start, Search, or Task view items, and if you want to remove any of them (except for Start), you must do so in Taskbar settings in the Settings app.

There are other differences.

The Windows 11 Taskbar cannot be moved to the other screen sides. You can hide it, but it will always appear on the bottom of the screen.

If you right-click and empty area of the Taskbar, a small context menu with just two choices–“Task Manager” and “Taskbar settings”–appears, whereas the Taskbar in previous Windows versions displayed a long list of options with sub-menus.

Finally, if the Taskbar isn’t wide enough to display all its contained items, it will display a “Taskbar overflow menu item (“…”) you can click to display the hidden items.

Tip: This is more likely to happen if you configure the option “Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels” to “Never.”

Access the Taskbar with the keyboard

Windows 11 provides some useful keyboard shortcuts for those who like to keep their fingers on the keyboard.

To select the first pinned app shortcut in the Taskbar, type Windows Key + T. When you do so, a selection box appears around the shortcut.

Then, you can move the selection box right or left by tapping the RIGHT ARROW or LEFT ARROW keys, respectively.

To launch the selected app, tap the ENTER or SPACE keys.

Finally, you can also move that selection box to the first pinned app shortcut by tapping the HOME key. Or move it to the last shortcut by tapping the END key.

You can also directly launch any pinned app by typing Windows Key + number, where number represents that app’s shortcut’s position in the Taskbar. For example, to launch the third pinned application, type Windows Key + 3. Note that this doesn’t apply to built-in Taskbar items, like Start, Search, Task view, and Widgets, though each has its own keyboard shortcut as noted elsewhere in this chapter.