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!
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!
I ran the prompt. I entered the value, I checked the box, the box had a blue check mark in it, I clicked the ok button, and my icons are still only partially visible. I've had so many problems with windows 11. This is the last change I need to make and it's not working. I guess I have to go in manually every time something changes and tell this piece of crap operating system to show each one individually. If I ever meet Bill Gates I will slap him like Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. As the police are taking me away I will scream out, "that's for not letting me automatically show all the icons on my taskbar in windows 11!!!"
josh672 I am with you brother. Microsoft: all about coulda, not shoulda.
I tried this and it worked. However, later on in the day, it stopped working, I have to click on the arrow to see some icons. When I went through the process again, the Notifications Area Icons window still has a tick by the always show all icons but I cannot untick it or tick it again???
Have you got an ideas, please!- Yes same here
- Amazing, thank you. I reported this years ago during the first Windows 11 tests and they told me there were no plans to add it...
- 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!- > 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. - Well this is by far the best fix I've found so far, thank you.
- Thank you!
- That is great - why did none of us think of that! I just hope it sticks but thank you!
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)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.Floydy
I like your solution, but what I plan to do with our Windows 11 deployment is to prestage any icons that have to be there by adding them to the %systemdrive%\users\default\ntuser.dat registry file.
I'm a little bit concerned about the "IconSnapshot" registry key, however. My fear is that it will break it.
From some research, it appears that the key names are competely random and many have reported that the differ between computers for the same executable. That's probably why it breaks when something as simple as a new version is deployed. I can't tell you how many times I've unhidden Teams, for example.
I'll have to do some testing, but I'm hoping that method might work. I might just end up managing those keys via GPO or Intune setting as well.
Although, I was just playing with some coding and cobbled together a C# script that I called "NotifWatcher.exe". Basically, every 5 seconds, it queries all the subkeys of the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings registry key and resets any value of "IsPromoted" that is not equal to 1, back to 1. We could go with every 60 seconds or something too. The script below worked and seemed to have very minimal CPU on my system. Much less than PowerShell when I told it to do the same thing. I guess I'd be worried about the chattiness of this solution if we'd ever have to do a ProcessMonitor explore, however.using Microsoft.Win32; using System; using System.Threading; class Program { static void Main() { while (true) { CheckAndUpdateRegistryValue(@"Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings"); Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5)); } } static void CheckAndUpdateRegistryValue(string registryPath) { const string propertyName = "IsPromoted"; using (var key = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(registryPath, writable: true)) { if (key != null) { var propertyValue = key.GetValue(propertyName); if (propertyValue != null && propertyValue.ToString() == "0") { key.SetValue(propertyName, 1, RegistryValueKind.DWord); } // Recursively check all subkeys foreach (string subkeyName in key.GetSubKeyNames()) { CheckAndUpdateRegistryValue(registryPath + "\\" + subkeyName); } } } } }
So, Microsoft, if you're listening - please just bring back the "Show All Tray Icons" option and we won't have to implement stupid solutions like the one above.
@Thanks, this is what i was looking for. I wanted to pin on app and let the users manage the rest
- This post is from 2022. It's 2024 now, and we still don't have a way to "always show all tray icons".
Most applications that have a tray icon also have an option for "hide tray icon". I don't need microsoft to force hide the **bleep** tray icons.
Microsoft keeps adding stupid crap like this to windows instead of streamlining existing stuff. I get why... it's easier to add new code than it is to fix existing, but come on they're just shoveling crap on top of crap instead of fixing stuff, so the OS UI elements become a sluggish mess.
Satya, fix your company.- Powershell as admin:
$RegistryPath = 'HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings'
$Name = 'IsPromoted'
$Value = '1'
Get-ChildItem -path $RegistryPath -Recurse | ForEach-Object {New-ItemProperty -Path $_.PSPath -Name $Name -Value $Value -PropertyType DWORD -Force }
All system tray icons now showing, even after restart, enjoy ..Only which worked for me, thx.
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:
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.
- Another reason why I am starting to hate Windows 11 so much some of these UX/UI decisions are BS sorry to say...its too easy to have an option to show all current system tray icons instead we have to turn on/or off the ones we want essentially making the system tray useless.
I am tired of having to click the little arrow just to show the icons...madness. - Come on Microsoft. 350, 000 people have viewed this thread looking for a solution.
Put the option "Show all tray icons" back into Windows 11. For me, I want to see whats running in my tray as part of keeping my PC trimmed of unnecessary background rubbish. These days it seems like most apps want their own tray icon running which drives me mad. I want the tray icons front and centre when something new is installed.
Remember when hiding tray icons was a new concept? Now Microsoft has ACTIVELY DISABLED the OPTION to show new tray icons by default. People writing apps and scripts for a simple tick box. Madness. 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"!
- Am I crazy? I right click on the taskbar and all I see is Task Manager (after the latest update) and Taskbar Settings. And like OP I can only do them one by one and when an app updates I have to add it again...
- Same here....
I just registered a profile to tell you, you are spare parts bud.
That method does not work.
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!
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.- 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.
