The Windows Taskbar is one of the most useful parts of UI that we have been using. Not many of us have fiddled around with settings regarding the taskbar. However, the fact remains that you can Auto-Hide the Taskbar, and this is something that you may want to do if you prefer the uncluttered look. Without the Taskbar, perhaps you would like the extra space the desktop has to offer.
Windows offers the feature to hide the taskbar and the same can be found by heading over to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar. Here you will find an option that will let you “Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode” and that which reads “Automatically hide the taskbar in the tablet mode.”
If you use the Windows 10 device as a tablet by switching on the tablet mode, you can choose the second option. On the other hand, if you want the Taskbar to automatically hide when in Desktop mode, you can select the first option.
After enabling the hide taskbar feature, one can bring up the taskbar by simply hovering the mouse over the same and this feature has worked flawlessly for me until now. Recently I have observed that the Taskbar refused to hide!
Taskbar not hiding in Windows 11/10
If this happens to you first, please check if any of the app icons are flashing, if yes, close the app completely. The same applies to apps running in the background. However, in my case, the issue persisted and needed further troubleshooting.
If you face the issue of Taskbar not hiding on your Windows PC, here are a few things you could try:
1] Restart Explorer
Open Windows Task Manager, identify the process by the name “Windows Explorer” and right-click on the same and then click on Restart and ensure that the explorer.exe process restarts.
The above step ensures that all the duplicate instances of Windows Explorer are killed.
2] Change the Taskbar setting
Yet another anomaly I observed is that background apps prevent the Taskbar from hiding. So set which icons should show in the Taskbar. It is for this reason that I would personally suggest you go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar and click on “Which icons appear on the taskbar.” After this, we recommend you to choose “Always show all icons in the notification area.” By enabling this option, you will be able to zero in on the troublemaker pretty easily and can remove the same from the taskbar.
3] Change the Notifications setting
If this does not work for you, again, head over to Settings > System > Notifications & actions. From here, toggle off the “Get notifications from apps and other senders” – or else try ticking off individual programs from the list.
The bottom line is that you can hide the taskbar in several ways and the latest Windows version also gives you better control over how the notifications can be handled.
4] Disable icons from appearing in Taskbar
It could also be some desktop software that may be programmatically making the taskbar visible. See if any 3rd-party software is preventing this. If so, disable this icon from appearing on the taskbar. Disable showing of notifications for such problematic taskbar icons.
5] Troubleshoot in Clean Boot State
If nothing helps, see if it occurs in the Clean Boot State. If it does not, you may have to manually troubleshoot and identify the offending process causing the Taskbar to not auto-hide. If it happens even in Clean Boot State, you may have to Run DISM to repair your system image. The easiest way to do this is to download our freeware FixWin and click on the Repair Windows System Image button.
Do note that auto-hiding of the taskbar is not supported on Windows Tablet PCs where only touch or pen screen input is utilized with no keyboard or mouse.
The Auto-hide taskbar feature will hide the taskbar and the start button. If you want to hide only the taskbar, and not the Start Button, use our freeware Hide Taskbar. It lets you hide or show the taskbar with a hotkey.
Related read: Taskbar has disappeared in Windows 11/10.
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