"Show all icons in system tray" option in windows11

[abdullah5490]

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?

[#2]

That is great - why did none of us think of that! I just hope it sticks but thank you!

[#3]

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.

[#4]

Not a solution I would favour and the click and move the icons does work OK and it "sticks"!

[#5]

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.

[#6]

> you can drag the icons outside the group

This makes it so much easier. While not a solution as such, it does make it quick to adjust the icons after a change.

[#7]

@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.

[#8]

It has been permanent solution for me. Once moved from the hidden box, on to the systray proper, the icons stay put!

[#9]

@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.

[#10]

This solves all your issues with windows 11: https://pureinfotech.com/downgrade-windows-11-10/

[#11]

Honestly, this seems like such a no-brainer fix.  The system tray is sometimes the only way you can tell that certain programs are running or performing tasks.  Someone at Microsoft had to actually take the time to remove a function that I'm pretty sure has been present since XP.  This is right up there with changing the four basic edit commands into meaningless unlabeled icons.  This regressive push towards hieroglyphics and mystery interfaces needs to stop.

[#12]

@abdullah5490 

Works with: Windows 10/11 (but you can use the Task Bar setting in W10)

Steps:

1. Click the up-arrow in the icon tray to show the hidden icons.
2. Left click the icon you want visible in the icon tray and drag it up-and-out of the icon tray.
3. 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-b2...

And yes, it was driving me nuts too.

[#13]

Incredible. I don't understand why this isn't in settings. Thanks! 😘

[#14]

man... BIG THANK YOU, crazy thing with this windows 11..... thanks !
and microsoft devs... really ?! wake up please.

[#15]

@haruncosovic 
awesome, straight to the point. 

[#16]

You made my day! 🙂
Thank you 😄

[#17]

No luck

[#18]

For those having issues with this method... It should work if you run explorer as an administrator. A simple way to do this is to start the Task Manager, then select File, and Run. Then enter "shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}" (you can omit the word 'explorer' in this case) and make sure to tick the box for "Create this task with administrative privileges.".

[#19]

@abdullah5490 

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!

[#20]

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)

[#21]

@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.