Windows 10: How to manage and display all system tray icons in Windows 11

A quick way to access some programs in Window, is by using their shortcut's icon displayed in the system tray. When Windows 10 came out, Microsoft made some changes to the way how the icons were shown, and the same applies to Windows 11.



The operating system only displays a handful of the icons at a time. To view the full list of shortcuts, you will need to click the caret button, which shows the rest of the icons in a pop-up panel. The idea seems good on paper, your taskbar looks neat with fewer elements on it. And This may not be an issue if you only access the shortcuts occasionally, but if it's the other way around, you may want to have the icons readily available.

With Windows 10, managing the system tray icons was a bit simpler. But, Microsoft changed the right-click menu of the Taskbar in Windows 11, so it takes a couple of extra steps to do the same.

How to display and manage system tray icons in Windows 11


1. Right-click anywhere on the taskbar, and you'll see an option that says Taskbar Settings. You can also get to this page by navigating to the Personalization > Taskbar page in the Settings app.

2. Scroll down the page, and you will see a list of programs that are allowed to display an icon in the taskbar corner overflow, aka the system tray. Go over the list, and decide which ones you'd like to have quick access to.

3. To turn an icon off, just toggle the switch next to the program's name. It is worth mentioning that the list includes Windows system icons such as Windows Security, which is used for opening Windows Defender. So, think twice before disabling the icon.

This is optional, but while you are on the same Settings page, you may choose to toggle the icons for the Pen Menu, Touch Keyboard, and Virtual Touchpad. If you don't use any of the features, why bother having the shortcuts enabled?

4. Click the caret button in the system tray to view all the icons, now click and drag an icon from the pop-up panel to the tray, and it will be displayed on the tray permanently. Similarly, to hide a shortcut from the tray, drag it to the panel instead.



Now, that takes care of managing system tray icons, you can hide and show the shortcuts that you want. You were maybe wondering whether there is a way to show or hide all the tray icons. There used to be an option for this, in the Control Panel > Notification Area Icons, but that was in Windows 11. Microsoft removed the option in Windows 11, so even if you try to access it from the Control Panel, it will just redirect you to the Settings app's Taskbar page, which we mentioned earlier.

But, not to worry. The Control Panel applet still exists, Windows 11 just hides it. To access it, open the Run command with Windows + R, and paste the following code in it. (credit: WinAero)

shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}
​

This will open the Control Panel that allows you to "Always Show all icons and notifications on the taskbar".



Hit the Ok button to apply the changes, and you are good to go. You may also toggle the behavior of the icons, i.e., whether the icons should be displayed permanently, or only when notifications are available.

Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post How to manage and display all system tray icons in Windows 11 appeared first on gHacks Technology News.

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Disappearing System Tray icon

I have a situation where my Macrium Reflect "backup-in-progress" icon stops being displayed. I've reported this to Macrium, but I'd like to better understand what is going on ... including how System Tray (a.k.a. notification area) icons are displayed.

I'm running Win 10 2004 and (if it matters) Macrium Reflect Home 7.3.5289.

This problem regularly occurs on only 1 of my 4 computers, and appears to be associated with Remote Desktop access and/or disconnected mode.

On "attended" computers (i.e., not using RDP access) the backup icon is always displayed, either in the System Tray or in the list of hidden icons, when MR runs a backup. But access via RDP seems to mess this up. I can reproduce the problem on any (well, at least 2) of my computers by the following scheme:

1. Start with the computer in a "Locked" state.
2. Connect to the computer using Remote Desktop.
3. Manually start a scheduled backup. The icon appears in System Tray.
4. Disconnect the Remote Desktop connection. This puts the computer in a Locked state but the backup runs to completion.
5. Wait for the computer to enter Sleep state.
6. Wake the computer with "Wake on Lan" processing and connect with Remote Desktop again.
7. Manually start another backup. This time the icon is not displayed.
8. Disconnect Remote Desktop and log in locally.
9. Start another backup. The icon is still not displayed.
10. Reboot and start another backup. The icon is displayed.

I know nothing about the Windows notification processing so this my be a really dumb question, but is there something trying to display a Systems Tray icon while Windows is running disconnected that would make Windows flag the icon as unusable? I know that can't be universal since I have most of my System Tray icons seem bothered by this.

 

Tray icon disappears

I've been experiencing since the installation of Windows XP SP2 on multiple machines with the ATITool Tray Icon disappearing upon load at system startup. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. Enabling or Disabling the "Hide Inactive (tray) Icons" WinXP menu option doesn't have any effect. The only way to open ATITool after it has loaded is to go through the start menu to open it again. I have "minimize on close" selected in ATITool. When closing ATITool, you see it make the motions of minimizing to the tray area but no icon is displayed. Any ideas?

 

How to recover hidden icon in System tray on Windows 10?

Hi Callum,

As you are facing issues with un-hiding the icon in System tray, we will help you with this issue.

Do let us know which is the icon you have deleted from the system tray for better assistance?

I suggest you to try the below steps to add the icons to Taskbar and check if it helps.

• Press Windows key, click on Settings.
• Click on System> Notifications & actions.
• Click on Select which icons appear on taskbar (to select the icons that appear on Taskbar)
  and also click on Turn system icons on or off

Hope it helps. If the issue still persists, let us know with brief description for further assistance. We will be happy to help you.

Thank you.