Your Taskbar might not be quite as configurable – and perhaps not as useful – as it used to be after upgrading your Windows 10 computer to Windows 11. With the new start menu and its no longer configurable Live Tiles, the old Start menu is no longer available. Rather than being within the Taskbar, the Taskbar is now linked to the Start menu, making it more complex to access the search box. In many ways, Learn How to customize your Windows 11 taskbar.
Lastly, the Taskbar is permanently attached to the bottom of the screen. If you prefer the Taskbar on top of the screen or either side of it, that’s not an option anymore.
Fortunately, Windows users have already posted fixes for most of these problems – assuming you know how to tweak your Windows Registry. You can, for instance, move the Taskbar to the top of the screen with one add-on while changing the size of the Taskbar with another.
Some of these features may be brought back in future updates to the new operating system. Let’s start by looking at how to customize the Windows 11 taskbar.
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PIN AN APP TO THE TASKBAR
It can seem a little strange to pin an app to the bottom of the Taskbar. You can do this in several ways:
- An app’s icon will appear with an active line beneath it during operation in the Taskbar. Right-click on the icon and select “Pin to taskbar” if you wish to keep its icon on the Taskbar after it has been closed.
- The running app icon can also be pinned to the Taskbar, even if it isn’t running. To pin the desktop icon to the Taskbar, right-click the icon and choose “Show more options.” You’ll see a long menu appear; scroll up to two-thirds of the way for the option.
- Select the “All apps” button from the Start icon, and then right-click on the app you want. Choosing “More” will bring up the “Pin to taskbar” option if you don’t see it in the menu.
TASKBAR: REMOVE AN APP
Typically, you can remove an application from the Taskbar by right-clicking the icon and selecting “Unpin from taskbar.”
It may take some extra time to remove a few icons. As would be expected, you cannot remove the Start menu icon. However, you cannot remove the four other icons; they are only hidden. To hide them, follow these steps:
- Select the Taskbar with the right-click.
- Go to “Settings” > “Personalization” > “Taskbar.” (Or you can go to “Settings” > “Taskbar.”)
- Choose any one of the four icons that you want to hide, starting with “Search,” “Task view,” “Widgets,” and “Chat.”
REMOVE YOUR ICONS TO THE LEFT
The Start menu in the lower right-hand corner of the screen is familiar to those who have used Windows 10 (or 7 or earlier iterations). It is possible to move the center icons to the left instead of your muscle memory keeps you reaching for them in that corner:
- You can change the Taskbar’s settings by right-clicking on the Taskbar and choosing “Taskbar settings.”
- You can change the behavior of the Taskbar by choosing “Taskbar settings.”
- Select “Left” instead of clicking on the “Center” button for “Taskbar alignment.”
- The icons for the apps in the Taskbar have been moved to the left, and the Start menu icon is now located in the corner.
Furthermore, you can perform some operations under the settings section dedicated to taskbar behavior. Even though the Taskbar has been a taskbar behavior for a very long time, it has been made easier to use by hiding the Taskbar automatically, showing unread messages on taskbar apps, handling how the Taskbar works with multiple displays, and showing a clean desktop by clicking the far right corner of the Taskbar.
ICONS IN THE TASKBAR CORNER AND OVERFLOW
I didn’t know the actual names of the taskbar corner icons or the overflow window until now, though I know they aren’t new. If I’m being honest with you, I imagined a bunch of app icons flowing out of the taskbar corner like Niagara Falls when I first heard the phrase. As it turns out, the corner icons are the icons on the right side of the Taskbar – the ones that show a variety of information like the time, the date, battery life, volume, and Wi-Fi status, among others. After selecting the left-pointing arrow in the corner icons, you’ll see the overflow pop-up menu.
As a rule, the icons in the overflow window alert you to things you need to do, such as messages you’ve received or updates you need to make. Similarly, this feature is useful for apps that run in the background, such as Discord; you can right-click on the icon and select “quit” to terminate them.
Windows corners have some hidden icons, such as the Pen menu, the Touch keyboard, and the Virtual touchpad. These settings are available on the same taskbar settings menu, where we can move the icons to the left, click on “Taskbar corner icons,” and turn off which icons you don’t want to see.
