How to Show or Hide the Notifications Area in Windows 10

If you’d like to hide the system tray or the notifications area in Windows 10/8/7 you can do so using the Registry, Group Policy Editor, or Ultimate Windows Tweaker.

Hide the Notifications Area in Windows 10

1] Using Registry

Open regedit and navigate to the following registry key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoTrayItemsDisplay

If it does not exist, in the right pane, right-click and create a new DWORD, NoTrayItemsDisplay and give it value ‘1‘.

Restart Explorer.

You will find that the notification area is hidden!

2] Using Group Policy Editor

You can also show or hide the Notification Area or System Tray via the Group Policy Editor.

Open gpedit.msc and navigate to:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu & Taskbar > Hide the notification area

This setting affects the notification area (previously called the “system tray”) on the taskbar.

Description: The notification area is located at the far right end of the task bar and includes the icons for current notifications and the system clock.

If this setting is enabled, the user’s entire notification area, including the notification icons, is hidden. The taskbar displays only the Start button, taskbar buttons, custom toolbars (if any), and the system clock.

If this setting is disabled or is not configured, the notification area is shown in the user’s taskbar.

Note: Enabling this setting overrides the “Turn off notification area cleanup” setting, because if the notification area is hidden, there is no need to clean up the icons.

Enable the setting, click Apply, and exit.

3] Using Ultimate Windows Tweaker

Use our free Ultimate Windows Tweaker to remove it with a click!

You will see the tweak at Customization > Taskbar.

Alternatively, you can also use this nifty app Hide SysTray to hide the notifications area easily.

You have to run it as an administrator and it requires .NET framework v 4.

Of course, why you’d want to do that is another question, but then the Windows operating system is all about options and it offers this option too!