How to hide system tray icons in Windows XP

Posted on December 28, 2007 at 6:40 am

I usually write about computer tips that help me, such as today when I wanted to hide some of the icons in my system tray on Windows XP. After a point, my system tray starts to cross the halfway mark on my screen and that’s a problem! Because I write this blog, I usually install lots of software so that I can test it before writing about it, but it also means my system tray is a disaster.

So here’s a simple, yet useful tutorial on how you can hide icons on your system tray without the need for any additional software.

First, right-click on the Taskbar and choose Properties.

taskbar

On the Taskbar tab at the bottom, you’ll see an option to Hide inactive icons. Well, if you want anything to be hidden, you first need to make sure that the checkbox for that option is checked!

hide inactive icons

Go ahead and click the Customize button to bring up the Customize Notifications dialog box:

customize notifications

Now you can scroll through the list of programs and choose from three options: Hide when inactive, Always show, or Always hide.

always hiude

Go ahead and choose Always hide for anything that you don’t care to see at all and choose Hide when inactive for items that you only want to appear when an action is being performed. For example, the new mail icon for Outlook can be set to Hide when inactive, which means it will only appear when you get a new email in your Outlook Inbox.

And that’s it! A quick and easy way to manage your system tray and keep it under control. Enjoy!

[tags]hide system tray icon, hide system tray icons, hide icon in system tray, how to hide system tray icons, hide icons from system tray, remove system tray icon[/tags]

 

 

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Comments

8 Responses to “How to hide system tray icons in Windows XP”

  1. Haris said on : December 28th, 2007 at 1:23 pm

    Nice tip, but I use tray icons a lot. :)


  2. akishore said on : December 28th, 2007 at 4:34 pm

    Hi Haris, could you post a link to this program? I tried a search, but get all kinds of stuff! Is it free? Thanks!


  3. Guglielmo Cancelli said on : March 19th, 2008 at 6:06 am

    Godo molto fare utilizzare questa trucco. Diverta si a fare piccolo scherzi a propri amici: il vostri amici rider


  4. dim said on : September 9th, 2008 at 10:36 pm

    Hey, this also works in Vista! Thanks!


  5. Adee said on : September 28th, 2008 at 8:10 pm

    Hi.. Works in windows XP. But after I set Always Hide to some of the icons, it reverted to original setting when I restart windows.


  6. Ann said on : October 30th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

    Although this works as described, unfortunately you will get that little arrow that indicates to the user that there are icons hidden. And a pop up will tell you that you have hidden icons, just in case you didn’t notice the arrow. And the icon(s) you hid, will still be visible and available to the user. This is all right for home users but not appropriate in a corporate environment or if you really want the icon to be gone off the system tray for good. Just FYI.


  7. Phil said on : March 3rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm

    As somebody mentioned above, some icons that are set to “Always Hide” or “Always Show” revert to “Hide When Inactive” after a reboot. I read on one forum that certain “vital system procedures” would always be visible no matter how you set them. Well I don’t consider things like my ATI video display settings to be a “vital system procedure”. I’ve set the icon to Always Hide a hundred times but after every reboot, there it is in my tray! If anyone knows how to fix this bug can they let us know? (For reference, I found the registry setting… but the binary code means nothing without knowing which icon is represented)


  8. Joe said on : July 31st, 2009 at 9:36 am

    Explanation was very nice and presented in such a manner that even someone like me can understand. Thanks


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