Forum Discussion
"Show all icons in system tray" option in windows11
Hello there. Subject said that all. This option was available till windows10 in taskbar and start menu settings, but in windows11, I found a settings to enable notification icons one by one, and not all icons remain enabled at the time. How to do this (show all icons in system tray) in windows11?
To always show all the Icons in the System Tray or Notification area of Windows 11/10, follow these steps:
1. Press Win+R to open the Run prompt.
2. Enter this value: explorer shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}
3. Tick the Always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar checkbox.
4. Click the OK button.Hope this helps everyone!
167 Replies
- The fact that this capability was removed is one of the most bizarre choices. As one earlier poster said, an individual at Microsoft had to willingly decide to remove the ability to show all system tray icons, and then work to make it impossible using the basic settings options. Meanwhile we are spending time trying to find and test homebrew solutions to a very simple problem that they caused. The run command recommendation did not work, but dragging the icons out of the "hidden" arrow zone to the between the other visible icons does seem to work, for now.
- Thanks so much, yes i am also using that method. At least, all icons are accessable through this.
Here's a powershell script to set currently known app icons to show. Could be set as a scheduled task or something.
Get-ChildItem "HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings" | ForEach-Object { Set-ItemProperty -Path $_.PSPath -Name 'IsPromoted' -Type 'DWORD' -Value 1 }
(Script execution must be enabled for it to work: Settings -> Privacy & Security -> For Developers -> Powershell)@Thanks, this is what i was looking for. I wanted to pin on app and let the users manage the rest
I've been looking into this issue for an enterprise solution.
IsPromoted = 1 in the reg is essentially what is being set to unhide each icon, which is also what gets set when this is changed manually.
I have come up with similar powershell, my intention is to set it as a scheduled task deployed from GPP to run every x minutes.
Note that you can run this as a simpler single powershell command using a wildcard * at the end of the path, without then needing the get command (although the result is the same).Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Control` Panel\NotifyIconSettings\*" -Name 'IsPromoted' -Value 1The reason it needs to run every x minutes (and the reason home users are finding the Windows 11 behaviour flakey) is because many of these icons are generated dynamically under certain conditions - therefore not only is every users icon uniquely identified, but the app icon you unhid yesterday may well be a completely different instance of that icon tomorrow. So the result is that the 'new' copy of that icon is default hidden each time, so appears to 'hide' again to the user.
So at the moment my best effort it to "capture" any icons currently running, to restore the taskbar as unhidden every x minutes.
All because Microsoft have forgotten how task bar icons are used (ironically including most of their own - such as Teams, Outlook, and Defender).
Update -
Struggled to get this concept to run as a Scheduled Task in Enterprise environment. 😕 It works, but its messy. It needs to run in the Users group context I believe in order to successfully access the HKCU unfortunately (SYSTEM doesn't seem to work), and this means every user would need Log On As Batch permissions (not viable for us). There's also an issue with it 'flashing' the powershell prompt briefly each time it runs, which isn't really acceptable on a fast schedule. This is the Scheduled Task command (note special character between "Control Panel") if anyone wants it - set to run as Users group (or as your own user if you're on a personal device).%SystemRoot%\syswow64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -WindowStyle Hidden -Command Set-ItemProperty -path "HKCU:\Control` Panel\NotifyIconSettings\*" -Name "IsPromoted" -Value 1Instead I'm probably going to look at just running the first powershell as a login and logoff script for each user from GPO, so it'll at least set icons unhidden that exist on logon and logoff (but it will miss any that only intermittently appear (such as Outlook envelope notification) and any that recreate dynamically. I'm hoping it will catch the ones we need most.
Conclusion (& Second Update) -
Can confirm running my first powershell command as a .ps1 script in Login & Logoff Powershell script tab in GPO works pretty well for Enterprise environment. Home users could do the same from Local Group Policy.
It won't capture every icon but it should capture anything that's fairly persistent.
It'll have to do, pig, it'll have to do.try this command.. seems to work well and switches on all the icons
powershell -command set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Control" Panel\NotifyIconSettings\*' -Name 'IsPromoted' -Value 1
Windows settings (right click on windows logo and click on settings) > Personalization > Taskbar > Other system tray icons (expand the third block) > Turn on which icons you want to show always.
Cheers!
- but you have to do it for each new program and this doesn't even stick (I've had Discord and other programs revert to hidden later)
- But it takes less than a second to drag them into the right place. . .
kamrulext
This is a crazy solution respectively it is NO solution. If someone wants to always see every active tools always and every time in the systray, of course he do NOT want to activate it for every icon separately. And the biggest problem is, if there comes a new tool or when there is a change, with Windows 11 you always have to re-active the setting for this icon.Microsoft, why do you have to make good things worse?
I understand that you want to hide the icons as a standard to make your OS look clean.
But of course you have to make all the icons visible with one checkbox for advanced users who need all the icons really often. It is a crazy idea to force the users to activate each and every icon separately. And of course we have to do it every time again when we install a new software. Crazy, really, really crazy.
Works with: Windows 10/11 (but you can use the Task Bar setting in W10)
Steps:
- Click the up-arrow in the icon tray to show the hidden icons.
- Left click the icon you want visible in the icon tray and drag it up-and-out of the icon tray.
- While still dragging the icon, drop it onto the visible area of the icon tray.
That's it. The icon will remain visible after a restart (tested).
And no, I too had no idea you could do this (even in W10). I found the answer on an MS Support page:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/customize-the-taskbar-notification-area-e159e8d2-9ac5-b2bd-61c5-bb63c1d437c3
And yes, it was driving me nuts too.- man... BIG THANK YOU, crazy thing with this windows 11..... thanks !
and microsoft devs... really ?! wake up please.
abdullah5490solution is greatly appreciated, but unfortunately this seems to be a temporary solution. This is incredibly frustrating as this is not merely a cosmetic issue but affects whether you know an upload has finished synchronising, status notifications from other apps. Having to keep clicking on the up arrow to make sure if a change has occured (dropbox, for example) is a waste of time.
- It has been permanent solution for me. Once moved from the hidden box, on to the systray proper, the icons stay put!
hughletheren The OneNote icon getting pushed back to the hidden ones with each update. So does the Dropbox one. As well as the Discord one.
I wonder if one could just script the api-calls required to get them back.
- I fixed it, you can downgrade to windows 10 on the same license. Which also means you don't have that abhorrent start menu anymore.
- Not a solution I would favour and the click and move the icons does work OK and it "sticks"!
- I'm not sure what you mean with the click and move. But it sounds like you would need to manually do it every time a new program is installed or one updates. Thb, windows 11 has this winME/vista/8.1 vibe. Were microsoft just fornicates around with useless stuff a lot of people dont want.
- I tried the proposed solution but it didn't work.
In the meanwhile I found out that you can drag the icons outside the group and drop them directly on the taskbar!- This works beautifully, while the shell option is no longer working even with admin elevated permissions. Thanks fvassura!
- This - this is it. Nothing else is needed. Thank you.
- Well this is by far the best fix I've found so far, thank you.
- Thank you!
Well this is pretty frustrating to deal with and I'm glad to see that I'm far from alone. Unfortunately haruncosovic's "best response" does work but only works temporarily and in my experience only worked one time before not working at all again.
I think we should all send feedback to Microsoft about this issue and hopefully they'll take the hint if enough of us do it.To always show all the Icons in the System Tray or Notification area of Windows 11/10, follow these steps:
1. Press Win+R to open the Run prompt.
2. Enter this value: explorer shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}
3. Tick the Always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar checkbox.
4. Click the OK button.Hope this helps everyone!
Unfortunately Microsoft has disabled being able to accomplish this....new suggestions needed. TY!
No longer works as of February 2025.
This didn't work for me. I had the tick already there and I still have icons not always appearing.
Right click your clock on your taskbar and choose "Customize notification icons".
A window will pop up. Select "Always show all icons and notifications in the taskbar" in the lower left corner.
Click "OK"!
misterpinkwindowshelp
Hello, did you get the Windows version wrong? What you write works in Windows 10, but not in Windows 11, which the questioner refers to.misterpinkwindowshelp nope. That's for Win10, not Win11.
- Thanks for clarifying this but misterpinkwindowshelp's post was exactly one year ago 🙂
There is still NO solution. I have to move some icons EVERY day!
I just registered a profile to tell you, you are spare parts bud.
That method does not work.
