Sometimes your Windows 11 taskbar can become choked with unnecessary icons. It is straightforward to configure and customize what you want on your taskbar, you can remove unnecessary icons, hide some apps, or you can decide to hide the taskbar completely. In this article, I will show you How to Make More Space available on the Windows 11 Taskbar. These are some other articles on the taskbar that you can read: How to disable Taskbar Web Search in Windows 10 via GPO and Windows Registry, and How to hide the Windows 10 Taskbar.
Below is a YouTube video showing how to Make More Space Available on Taskbar. You may want to see these guides: How to move the Taskbar to a second screen in Windows, How to Modify Windows 11 taskbar via Intune and GPO, How to Fix System Tray Icons not showing in Taskbar on Windows 11 and How to Fix Taskbar Icons Missing on Windows 11 .
Steps to Make Space Available on the Windows 11 Taskbar
1. How to Hide the Search Icon and Other Built-in app on the Taskbar. Right-click on the taskbar and select Taskbar settings.
2. How to Make Space Available on the Windows 11 Taskbar by Hiding Search
You will be navigated to Personalization > Taskbar screen. On the Search box drop-down select Hide, you can toggle the Task view, the Widgets and the Chat to Off.
After setting all these to Off you can still access the:
- Search box by using this Windows key + Q.
- Task view by using Windows key + Tab
- New virtual desktop by using Windows key + Ctrl + D
3. How to Unpin Programs from Taskbar
Another way to make more space is to unpin some programs you don’t use often or use any longer. Right-click on the program’s icon and select Unpin from taskbar, this will remove the program from the taskbar.
4. How to Hide the Pen menu, touch keyboard and virtual touchpad icons
To the right of some taskbar, you will see some other icons like the pen menu, touch keyboard, and virtual touchpad. If you don’t want these icons, you can remove them by doing this.
Right-click on the taskbar and select Taskbar settings. In the Taskbar corner icons section, toggle all icons to Off.
5. How to Hide the Taskbar Corner Overflow Icons
The Taskbar Corner Overflow are icons for programs that run services in the background and usually sit in the system tray.
If you find out that some of these icons are on the task bar instead of inside the system tray by default then you can start moving these icons back into the system tray to make more space available for you on the taskbar.
Right-click on the taskbar and select Taskbar settings. Click on Taskbar corner overflow and toggle all button to Off.
6. How to Automatically Hide and Align the Taskbar
You can also decide to completely hide the taskbar or you may align the taskbar from center to left to create more spaces by the right. Right-click on the taskbar and select Taskbar settings.
Click on Taskbar behaviors set the Taskbar alignment to Left and to hide the taskbar check the box Automatically hide the taskbar.
FAQs on how to Make More Space Available on Taskbar
1. Right-click on the Taskbar and select “Taskbar settings“.
2. After that, click on “Taskbar behaviors” to expand the menu.
3. Choose Left in the “Taskbar alignment” drop-down menu.
4.The Taskbar icons will move to the left.
Place your mouse cursor on the top edge of the taskbar. The pointer will turn into a two-headed arrow. When you click and drag the taskbar’s edge upward the size of the taskbar will increase.
I hope you found this blog post on how to Make More Space Available on the Windows 11 Taskbar Interesting and helpful. In case you have any questions do not hesitate to ask in the comment section.