If you want to disable or remove the Search, Task View, Widgets, and Chat icons from Windows 11 Taskbar, here is how you can do that. It is possible to hide those icons from the Taskbar using Windows Settings and Registry Editor.
By default, Windows 11 displays several icons, such as Search, Task View (Desktop), Widgets, Microsoft Teams Chat, etc., on the Taskbar. If you use all of them, there is no issue for you. However, if you have moved from Windows 7 or another older version, all these icons might work as clutter. Even if you have upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11, you might not need all these icons or features. If so, you can follow this tutorial to remove those unnecessary icons from the Taskbar using Settings or Registry Editor.
Remove Search, Task View or Widgets icons from Windows 11 Taskbar
To remove the Search, Task View, Widgets, or Chat icon from Windows 11 Taskbar, using Settings, do this:
- Press Win+I to open Windows Settings.
- Go to Personalization.
- Click on the Taskbar menu.
- Expand the Taskbar items on the right side.
- Toggle the Search, Task View, Widgets, and Chat buttons to turn them off.
However, if you want to get those icons back on the Taskbar, you need to go to the same location in the Windows Settings and toggle the corresponding buttons.
Read: How to turn off Widgets on the Taskbar on Windows 11.
Remove Search, Task View, Widgets or Chat icons using Registry Editor
Like said earlier, you can remove the default Taskbar icons in Windows 11 using Registry Editor. For that, do the following:
Press Win+R to open the Run prompt.
Type regedit > press the Enter button > click the Yes option.
Go to this path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Double-click on the TaskbarDa.
Set the Value data as 0.
Click the OK button to remove the Widgets icon.
Restart your computer.
Follow this list of REG_DWORD value that you need to edit and set the Value data as 0:
- Search: SearchboxTaskbarMode
- Task View: ShowTaskViewButton
- Widgets: TaskbarDa
- Chat: TaskbarMn
However, if you cannot find a REG_DWORD value in the Advanced key, you need to create it manually. For that, right-click on the Advanced > New > Key, and name it as required.
For your information, there are more other methods to hide the Chat icon from Windows 11 Taskbar. For example, you can uninstall the Microsoft Teams (Preview) app, select Hide as the status of Configure the Chat icon on the taskbar setting in the Local Group Policy Editor, and so on.
Related: How to disable Widgets in Windows 11 using Registry or Group Policy Editor.
How to hide Taskbar in Windows 11?
To hide Taskbar automatically in Windows 11, you can use the Windows Settings. For that, press Win+I to open the Windows Settings panel and go to Personalization > Taskbar. Expand the Taskbar behaviors panel on the right-side and tick the Automatically hide the taskbar checkbox. After that, Taskbar will be hidden automatically when it is not in use.
How to change Taskbar in Windows 11?
To change the Taskbar icon location or alignment, you need to go to Windows Settings > Personalization > Taskbar. Expand the Taskbar behaviors section on the right-hand side and choose Left from the Taskbar alignment drop-down list. On the other hand, you can follow this tutorial to change the Taskbar size in Windows 11.
How to unpin apps from Taskbar in Windows 11?
Unpinning apps in Windows 11 is similar to Windows 10. You need to right-click on the pinned app and select the Unpin from taskbar option. However, you need to follow the aforementioned steps to hide the preset icons from the Windows 11 Taskbar.
That’s all! Hope this guide helped.
