In Windows 11 , the Taskbar shows very few icons visible in the notification area also known as system tray. By default, only a few system icons such as Volume, Network, etc are shown in Taskbar notification area near the clock as shown in following screenshot:
Other icons such as Windows security, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, etc remain hidden in the notification area. Similarly all icons added by 3rd party software programs are also kept hidden by the Taskbar. These icons can be accessed by clicking on the Up Arrow icon shown in the Taskbar notification area as shown in following screenshot:
When you click on the Arrow icon, it opens a small flyout containing all hidden icons. This flyout is called “Taskbar Corner Overflow Menu” in Windows 11.
Many users may find this behavior annoying and may want to show all icons on Windows 11 Taskbar so that they can access all icons directly without clicking on the extra Arrow button. For example, if you install a 3rd party program to access emails or RSS feeds, it may add its icon in the notification area to show number of unread emails or news items and if Windows 11 hides its icon, you’ll need to click on the Arrow icon every time you want to check for new items.
In this tutorial, we’ll help you in showing all icons in Windows 11 Taskbar notification area as shown in following screenshot:
In previous Windows versions, there was an option (checkbox) to always show all icons in Taskbar notification area. Unfortunately, Windows 11 doesn’t provide such option in Taskbar settings.
Here are a few ways to show all icons in Taskbar notification area in Windows 11.
Table of Contents
This is the standard method to show or hide icons in Windows 11 Taskbar notification area:
1. Right-click on the empty area in Taskbar and select “Taskbar Settings” option. It’ll open Taskbar settings page.
Alternatively, you can open the same page using Settings app from Start Menu or by pressing WIN+I keys together and then go to “Personalization -> Taskbar” section.
2. On Taskbar settings page, you’ll see following option at the bottom of the page:
Taskbar corner overflow
Choose which icons may appear in the taskbar corner – all others will appear in the taskbar corner overflow menu.
Click on the option to expand it.
3. You’ll see a list of all icons present in Taskbar notification area. A toggle button is provided next to each item to show or hide it in the notification area.
You can set the toggle button to ON for any desired icon and it’ll immediately become visible in Taskbar notification area.
If you want to show all icons in Taskbar notification area, set the toggle buttons to ON for all icons.
Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t provide a universal ON button to force Windows 11 to show all icons in Taskbar notification area. At the moment, you need to manually set the toggle button to ON for each item.
Many users might not know that you can show/hide icons in Taskbar notification area by using a simple drag-n-drop feature.
If you want to show an icon in Taskbar notification area, click on the Arrow button to access Taskbar corner overflow menu and then click and hold the desired program icon. Now drag-n-drop the icon to notification area near Volume, etc icons. It’ll immediately move the icon from Taskbar corner overflow menu to notification area.
You can follow the same steps to move all icons to Taskbar notification area.
Similarly, if you want to hide any icon, drag-n-drop the icon from notification area to Taskbar corner overflow menu.
There is a hidden secret command to open classic “Customize notification area icons” window directly in Windows 11.
If you remember, we shared this command long time back in 2011. We posted an exclusive tutorial to create a direct shortcut to open customize notification area icons window. Fortunately that shortcut still works in Windows 11.
You can find the tutorial at following link:
You can download a ready-made shortcut from the above mentioned article or use following command in RUN dialog box:
It’ll open classic Notification Area Icons customization window.
Now select “Always show all icons and notifications on the Taskbar” checkbox and it’ll immediately enable all icons in Taskbar system tray.
Published in: Windows 11
About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded the Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds a Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.
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