Is your Windows 10’s Notification area filled up with too many app icons? Trying to remove the icons in the system tray on the taskbar or want to show only some specific icons in the tray and remove the rest? It’s easy to hide or remove taskbar icons in the system tray on your Windows 10 computer, you can configure which ones to show and which ones to hide, all you need is to change a quick setting on Windows 10.
The Windows 10 system tray can be customized the way you want, you can keep the tray icons you like and hide them if you don’t, we aren’t talking about hiding inside the taskbar itself, but they can be removed straight away and this guide shows you exactly how.
How to remove taskbar icons in the system tray [Windows 10]
- Hit the Windows key to open the Start menu and click on the Settings gear icon on the left side. You can also press the keyboard shortcut Windows + I to open the Windows Settings.
- Click on Personalization from the list of settings.
- On the left side, you can see the Taskbar at the bottom, click Taskbar to change the Taskbar related settings. The icons reside in the system tray on the Taskbar.
- Now, on the right side, you will see some toggle sliders, swipe to the bottom, and under the Notification area, click Select which icons appear on the taskbar. Here, you can control which icons to show and hide.
- Use the sliders to remove or show the icons from the system tray on the taskbar.
- If you want to remove the system icons such as the Clock or Volume, click on the Turn system icons on or off under the Notification area. Use the sliders to turn on or off the system icons that you see in the taskbar.
The icons you want to remove will be gone, you can always bring them back using the same steps mentioned above. This will just hide the icon and not quit the program or app that’s running in the background, you have to close the program manually, removing the icons won’t help.
If you have tried closing the icons from the system tray, know that there are certain apps that run at the startup automatically which causes the icons to come back whenever you restart your PC, but these apps can be disabled if needed. It also improves the boot time of your computer as well as the performance. Here are the 3 ways to disable startup apps on Windows 10.
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