Windhawk mods for the Windows 11 taskbar
A few weeks ago, Windhawk, the customization marketplace for Windows programs, was released. You can read the announcement blog post for more details and for the motivation behind creating it. One of the sections of the blog post was dedicated to 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.
Regarding the future of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker: It will keep existing as a separate program which supports Windows 7 to Windows 10. As mentioned in a recent blog post, most parts of the taskbar were reimplemented in Windows 11, and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker can’t be made to work with the new taskbar without a huge amount of work. My plan, at least in the short term, is to implement the most demanded customizations for Windows 11 as Windhawk mods.
Below is a table with features that are available in Windows 10 but are missing in Windows 11. Some of the features are part of Windows 10 (marked with the 
icon) and some are part of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker (marked with the 
icon). Please vote for the features that you’d like to have back in Windows 11. I’ll prioritize implementing the most requested features as Windhawk mods. For each implemented feature, the page will be updated to reflect the current status.
Voting can be done in two ways, simple voting and a donation. I added the donation option to be able to give extra priority to votes of users who wish to support the project with a donation. To vote with a donation, add the feature hashtag to the donation comment like this. Donations are a great motivating factor (thanks!), and I think that letting supporters decide where to focus first is a nice perk.
| Feature | Votes | Donations | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Right click: Standard window menu |
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| Middle click: Switch to / Minimize / Close |
✔️ Partial | ||
| Dropping: Open with |
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| Hovering: List / Tooltip / Nothing |
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| Thumbnails: Drag to reorder |
✅ Done | ||
| Thumbnails: Left click on the active thumbnail minimizes the window |
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| Pinned items: Remove extra gap between items |
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| Pinned items: Open with double click |
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| Grouping: Don’t group |
✔️ Partial | ||
| Grouping: When not grouping, place new items next to the existing ones |
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| Grouping: Don’t group pinned items |
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| Grouping: Drag within/between groups using right mouse button |
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| Left click on combined item: Cycle through windows |
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| Mouse wheel: Cycle between taskbar buttons |
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| Minimize/restore when mouse is over: Taskbar buttons / Thumbnails |
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| Control volume when mouse is over: The taskbar / The notification area |
✅ Done | ||
| Customize double/middle click on empty space |
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| Hide the Start button |
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| Hide the “Show desktop” button |
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| Display seconds on the tray clock |
✅ Done | ||
| Reserve empty space on taskbar |
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| Change the size of taskbar icons |
✅ Done | ||
| Taskbar Inspector |
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| Decombine taskbar buttons |
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| Show labels in taskbar buttons |
✅ Done | ||
| Taskbar on the top of the screen |
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| Taskbar on the side of the screen |
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| Open Taskbar Manager via right click |
If a feature that you’d like to see in Windows 11 is not in the table, please let me know in the comments below.
Tags: 7+ taskbar tweaker, windhawk
“Hide the “Show desktop” button” разве эта не та опция, которая управляется в окне параметров?
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Параметр TaskbarSd со значением 1 или 0.
Почти. С TaskbarSd кнопка отключается, но от нее все равно остается немного занятого места справа. “Hide the “Show desktop” button” подразумевает скрытие этого пустого места.
Add a way to customize the icon size of the taskbar..
Thanks for the suggestion, added with the name “Change the size of taskbar icons”. I assume you’re looking for something like the w10_large_icons advanced option.
By the way, I haven’t tried it myself, but it looks like there’s a registry option to change the size of the taskbar, perhaps you’ll find it useful:
https://www.howtogeek.com/759589/how-to-make-your-taskbar-larger-or-smaller-on-windows-11/
You’re right ! I used this option and it was working since last insider version. (the same version that contain the new task manager and also fix drag & drop in taskbar).
It seem Microsoft removed this option because it don’t have any effect anymore. I tried 3 size. But it could be nice to have something in Windhawk that allow to decide icon size in pixels and maybe to control padding of each of them.
Two requests please:
“Notification area: Remove extra gap between items” (recently added, major annoyance for some)
“Notification area: Drag to reorder items” (recently removed)
Please vote for “Pinned items: Remove extra gap between items”, it’s related, and I’ll look at controlling the gap in the notification area too when I’ll look at it.
What do you mean? I think you can reorder the icons in all Windows 11 versions, except for the volume and network icons which are implemented differently. Or did you mean reordering these two?
in newer insider builds you can’t drag and drop tray icons anymore, though as it’s insider it may not be intentional
Yes, insider builds. Was introduced along with the new gap, which is there for tablet mode touch interactions. That the gap is also in desktop mode suggests standardization of UI appearance. But on desktop it doesn’t make sense so feels forced upon us. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the loss of drag and drop ordering is similarly forced and intentional: maybe via touch it’s easy to drag icons accidentally, so it’s universally gone. That would make sense since some users toggle both modes and need a consistent experience.
okay, apparently it was semi-intentional, but it was also reverted in latest build
https://i.imgur.com/uWdcsoy.jpeg this too pls
That would be “Customize double/middle click on empty space”, vote for it.
Would this: https://i.imgur.com/8PCHW4M.png also fall under that category?
I’m using this with mouse4 and mouse5 and it’s really useful. On a side note, if it’s implemented, a way to achieve this without editing the registry would be great.
Thank you for your work.
Yes, I can’t promise that it will be possible in the first version of the mod, but I’d eventually like to make it possible. Adding configuration to mods is easier than adding it to the tweaker, so no registry editing will be necessary.
The only option I need is this:
show_desktop_button_size which was in the extended options
Vote for “Hide the “Show desktop” button”, I’ll try to implement changing its size too when I look at it.
How about the “Left click on combined item: Open last window if inactive, otherwise open thumbnail preview”? I don’t see it on the list. Didn’t realize how much I’d miss that feature. Thanks!
Please vote for “Left click on combined item: Cycle through windows”. I’ll look into adding the option you mentioned, too.
Can you implement again the possibility to ctrl+middle click in order to kill an application?
Currently I have a “Mouse Button Control” in the advanced options defined as : “taskbaritem|ctrl+mclick = 8”
I’ll consider it as an addition for the “Middle click to close on the taskbar” mod, but I have other things which I’d like to implement before that.
Hi RaMMicHaeL,
Is it possible please to implement keyboard shortcuts for such things like:
– Move the button group containing the active window to the left\right
– Switch to the window which is located on the left\right to the active window on the taskbar (skip minimized windows)
This is my favorites!
Thanks!
Hi Yuri,
Thanks for the suggestions!
I’ll consider it, but currently it’s not a priority.
You can vote for “Mouse wheel: Cycle between taskbar buttons”, I’ll consider adding keyboard shortcuts too.
Believe it or not, but some visitors voted for some of the features more than once. It’s not difficult to cheat and vote more than once, but please don’t do that, it just creates an incorrect representation of what most users want to see implemented, and it creates extra work for me to clean it up.
First of all, thank you for the continued work on these added features that, honestly, should have been (at least partially) included in Windows by default.
For me, the most used features are:
– Middle click to close (which I see is already implemented)
– Ctrl+middle click to force close (taskbaritem|ctrl+mclick = 8)
– Mouse button 6 to open a new instance (taskbaritem|x2click = 4)
– Dragging within/between groups using the right mouse button
As far as showing label go, I’m seriously considering using Start11 when switching to Windows 11. It would be really cool if you could somehow make some features work with that (like dragging within/between groups with right click), instead of only trying to implement everything from scratch.
Thanks for the feedback.
Not exactly it, but now Windhawk has the Taskbar Thumbnail Reorder mod:
https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-thumbnail-reorder
Dragging within/between groups using the right mouse button would require to be able to decombine items, something that isn’t possible in Windows 11 and is not easy to implement with a mod.
For the rest of the features you listed, I’ll consider implementing them as mods, too, when I have some spare time.
Any way to implement a fix on the borders of the clock? To make it wrap around the actual size? I mean this: https://imgur.com/a/4cAOFrC
I like the shorter clock format but the extra space bugs me
I looked a it. That’s the default behavior of the taskbar, and I didn’t find an easy way to change it. I’ll try to look at it again in the future when I have some spare time.
Windows 11’s new taskbar broke the ability to drag files/images/etc. onto taskbar icons in order to open a different window. Now you have to have both windows visible in order to drag something between them, which is maddening.
If this is possible to fix with Windhawk, would you add it to the table?
As far as I know, Microsoft is going to fix this in Windows 11 version 22H2 which is about to be released soon.
Ah okay, that’s good to hear then. Thanks!
Drag to reorder Windows is obviously top feature. Can we have profiles or layouts to save the positions of the tabs accross virtual desktops ?
This would be amazing when u have 100 tabs.
Check out Taskbar Thumbnail Reorder.
The order of thumbnails is preserved between virtual desktops. You only lose it if the relevant program or the computer restarts.
I would like to donate for the Reserve empty space on taskbar feature, but paypal is not available in my country and I also don’t have bitcoin. I was the one who requested this feature (huge thanks to the developer for making my request) and maybe no one is using it. Honestly, I’m still using windows 7, but I’d like this feature already in case I have to upgrade in the future. I hope i can use windows 7 until i get old. Hoping to make a big donation in the future…
Would be nice to be able to drag things to the taskbar and it would open the window/folder. For eg if you wanted to drap something from one folder to another. Thanks
Microsoft is going to fix this in Windows 11 version 22H2 which is about to be released soon.
Thanks so much! You’re making it really difficult for me staying on win10. I only need left orientation for taskbar, or the ability to save virtual desktops (shutdown makes me have to reorder programs)
Vertical taskbar omitted?
On a 4K 40″, the horizontal taskbar is no issue.
But on a 16:9 laptop with a 15″ screen, the inability to preserve every pixel of vertical real estate is a major encumbrance.
I imagine it’s beyond too difficult to implement as the codebase for the new taskbar doesn’t yet exist in the vertical format.
Will continue to use Explorer Patcher & 7+TT on my laptop for the no_width_limit vertical taskbar.
Many thanks for all your efforts
It’s not omitted, you can vote for “Taskbar on the side of the screen”. It’s indeed not easy to implement, and given that it’s also not one of the highest voted feature requests, it’s not a high priority for me at this point.
Is there a way to show the labels for running programs. If I use the don’t group add-in they are still just an icon. Thanks for all your great work!
At this time there’s no mod for it. You can vote for “Show labels in taskbar buttons”.
Somehow, “Taskbar Volume Control” mod does not work in 21H2 (22000.739).
Hovering above the volume icon and scrolling the wheel produces nothing. It works only after clicking the icon. But if you have clicked, there is no point in the mod; since it is a standard 21H2 feature to scroll volume after clicking.
It maybe related to the laptop configuration, where the battery is also in the bunch with the speaker icon, I don’t know.
oh.. it seems it does not work when WinHawk window is open. But starts working when focused on other windows.
Does Taskbar Numberer work in Windows 11?
I believe it is one of the main things which keeps me from trying switching to Windows 11.
7+ Taskbar Numberer doesn’t support Windows 11, see my comment here:
https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-numberer/comment-page-3#comment-12858
Hi Michael, one other VERY useful feature missing in the Windhawk list is mute volume by middleclick on the taskbar. That was a quick and a very efficient if you need to mute down volume quickly. I’d vote for that. thanks
Could you fix drag and drop to the taskbar in Windows 11?
Microsoft claim they will fix it but didn’t do it yet.
It should not a big deal to make a Windhawk mod since it is already done by other developers such as:
https://github.com/HerMajestyDrMona/Windows11DragAndDropToTaskbarFix/releases/tag/v.2.3.0.0-release
Thank you for the suggestion. I’m not sure how much of a big deal is it, but it’s not something that that takes five minutes. The code you linked has about 4,500 lines of code.
Since it’s going to be fixed in the next Windows 11 version, and since a tool that solves this already exists, and since there are many other mods which are more requested by users, it’s unlikely that I’m going to take the challenge. But perhaps you can ask the author of the project you linked to create a mod out of their tool. You can suggest it in their issues section. I will try to provide any necessary help with the porting if needed.
Wow! Thanks so much for such a fast reply to my comment.
I’m missing the “Aero Peek” (where you hover over the “show desktop” button right of the clock in the taskbar and the desktop is revealed) functionality in Windows 11 dearly.
Would it be possible to add this feature to the list above?
I’ll keep an eye on it, and I’ll add it to the list if I see that more users are interested in it. As a side note, you can still activate Aero Peek with the keyboard with
Win+,.Adding toolbars for Win 11. I use desktop and custom tool bar for folders quick access.
If I understood your problem, True Launch Bar might work as a solution for you.
Is it a problem with Windhawk or Windows 11 that custom folder icons are not shown on taskbar?
Before we get “Show labels in taskbar buttons” its quite difficult to know what folders I have open when there are 10 identical folder icons (and hovering them gives the name after a short delay).
It’s a bit of both, and in fact this also happens in Windows 10 if taskbar preferences are set to “Combine taskbar buttons: Always, hide labels”.
In Windows 10, when labels are shown, each taskbar item uses the icon of the relevant window. When labels are hidden, icons of the programs, not the windows, are used instead (so all folders use the same icon).
In Windows 11, there’s no option to show labels, and program icons are always used. It can be implemented as a mod, but it’s not simple since this functionality is missing and has to be implemented from scratch.
You added the labels, which works great. Thanks for that.
But there’s a slight conflict with Large Taskbar Icons as the labels can get too close to the enlarged icons. If there would be setting (on Show Labels) to add empty space to left of the label (between text and icon), that would rectify the problem.
I’ll consider adding something like this in the future. For now, you can fork the mod and change this line:
margin.Left = 10 + 24 + 8;Just add another value to add more margin to the left of the text. For example, change the line to:
margin.Left = 10 + 24 + 8 + 4;That’s the power of open source mods, you can change everything rather easily.
Second most-used feature for me is show/hide labels on scroll (while pressing right mouse button)…
I think it is currently missing in the overview.
Yes, I didn’t include advanced options in the table since they’re less popular (one exception is “Change the size of taskbar icons”).
Regarding your request, first there has to be a way to show labels on the taskbar. So you can start by voting for “Show labels in taskbar buttons”.
I see there is a fix for “Show labels in taskbar buttons” now?
Great news!
So can we move on to the advanced options already, or is it still too early? 🙂
It’s too early. There’s the labels mod, but it’s rather buggy at this point and it requires more work. For example, when there are many items, they just go off screen instead of shrinking in size like in Windows 10, which is a rather serious limitation. I have a list of many other things that I’d like to accomplish before going for (most) advanced options.
I completely understand. Thanks for taking the time to respond and for all the effort put in the new Windhawk mods.
I will make a financial contribution to support your work. Thanks!
Thank you for the support Tim, I appreciate it!
Thumpnail Reoder works perfectly in Windows 11!
7+ Taskbar Tweaker has this option that I’m also missing very much to keep the order of the taskbar icons (both pinned and unpinned) when switching between virtual desktops.
Thank you very much!
Can you add the “disable_topmost” feature for windows 11 via windhawk mod please ?
Hello. I need in Windows 11 that the icons in the taskbar (already not grouped) automatically appears in the order of opening. For example, I open in sequence “Notepad”, then “Chrome”, then “Notepad”: I would like to see in the taskbar the icons in the following order: “Notepad”, “Chrome”, “Notepad”, instead I see “Notepad”, “Notepad”, “Chrome” (which is not the opening order, they are shown in app order). Is it already achievable in some way? Thank you.
Hi, sounds like you’re looking for the Disable grouping on the taskbar mod. Note that after installing, you’ll need to re-open your programs to have them ungrouped.
Thank you very much, it worked. Now the icons appear not grouped and in their opening order (this last one feature was very important for me). Thank you very much.
I may be blind but I don’t see an entry for “Mouse Wheel: Minimize/restore when mouse is over: [x] Taskbar buttons [x] Thumbnails”.
That’s my most wanted feature. I’m willing to donate for this feature if it’s added to the list 🙂
Nevermind I see it in the list now. I seached for “wheel” and “scroll” but it didn’t include those keywords!
Hi,
A feature called virtual_desktop_order_fix is available in 7++ Taskbar Tweaker, where we can preserve the order of taskbar icons while switching between virtual desktops.
Is it also available in Windhawk?
Hi,
Not yet, but I’ll look into adding it.
+1 on this feature too. such an annoying issue
+1 on this feature! Waiting so much! Thank you!
Hi I love the taskbar ungrouping and always showing labels! The applications’ notification badges are near center and not on the right, as if it thinks the taskbar icon is still just an icon.
Hi,
That’s a known issue, and I plan to look into fixing it.
Awesome. Thank you!!!
Is the “Hovering: List / Tooltip / Nothing” feature the same as Jumplists from Windows 10?
It’s not about the jump lists, it’s about thumbnails. Here’s the relevant page in the help file of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker:
https://i.imgur.com/MJRaKRB.png
Thanks. I thought this would show recent files opened in an app when you hovered over the app’s icon. I miss that feature a lot but this is cool too I guess 😀
You have jump lists in Windows 11. You can right click on a taskbar item and see the history and other actions, depending on the program. Unlike Windows 10, dragging the taskbar button up doesn’t bring up the jump list. And, in case you’re using it, the “Disable grouping on the taskbar” mod causes jump lists to stop showing extra items such as recent files.
Right but that requires that I open the app first, then I could choose which file I to open. I also still have to right click to see it. It’s actually not all that helpful because most if not all apps show their historical items anyway.
In W10 and earlier I could see it from the Start menu by hovering over the app icon (or there might have been an arrow next to the app). So I didn’t have to open the app first.
It’s less clicking and waiting; I can get to my file in one click, directly from the Start menu.
Oh, so you’re talking about the start menu, not the taskbar. You can still see this, but not in the pinned icons area for some reason. Searching for an app shows recent items. Going to “All apps” and right clicking does that too.
Is there any way to run Taskbar Inspector as a separate program? Really need this feature
Not yet, but it’s planned to be ported to a Windhawk mod. Meanwhile, feel free to vote for Taskbar Inspector on this page.
Not sure the diff between “Grouping: Don’t group” and “Decombine taskbar buttons” so I voted for both. Basically, I really want to see individual windows in the taskbar again, instead of just app groups. I think that’s probably “decombine”.
From the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker help file: https://i.imgur.com/gcznrhp.png
In Windows 7/10, you can’t truly disable grouping without resorting to third party tools – even if you choose “Never combine taskbar buttons”, if you open several browser windows, they’re stuck together, you can’t reorder them and you can’t separate them: https://i.imgur.com/1tddiMe.png
You can try the “Disable grouping on the taskbar” mod for Windows 11 which disables grouping: https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-grouping
Can you add “15 – Alphabetically sort group items” advanced option please? I happen to open many windows in an app, so I would like them to be sorted. I use this with taskbaritem|ctrl+rclick.
Thank you very much.
I’d rather not add advanced options at this point, as there are many things I’d like to do before that. But I’ll keep your request in mind.
I’d really like to see the vertical taskbar come back, especially a narrow one like with no_width_limit set on 7TT
You said
“In Windows 7/10, you can’t truly disable grouping – even if you choose “Never combine taskbar buttons”, if you open several browser windows, they’re stuck together, you can’t reorder them and you can’t separate them”
I’m not sure what you meant, but as you can see in the picture, fortunately you can have that.
https://imgur.com/JN699pY
Is it possible to still have the small/thin taskbar in Windows 11 ? Like in the picture ? In windows 10 you activate that by going to Taskbar Settings/Use small taskbar buttons.
Right, you can if you use 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. I meant that Windows doesn’t offer such an option out of the box.
You can try the Large Taskbar Icons mod, which allows to configure the size of the icons and the height of the taskbar. Despite the name, it can also make the icons smaller.
As far as I saw in your screenshot, the icons were smaller, but the taskbar was still big. Maybe was that big on purpose in that screenshot ? And in fact you can make the taskbar as small as you can in the above picture ? I hope.
I’d love an option to quickly toggle Taskbar autohide on and off. I make a lot of training videos and prefer to hide the Taskbar during those. Right now, I have to go into settings to turn it off, then go back again, multiple clicks each time. For me, the ideal scenario would be to middle-click on an empty part of the taskbar to turn autohide on/off.
This is a feature I would definitely donate to upvote!
Multi-row taskbar. We used to be able to resize the taskbar to 2 or 3 rows by dragging the top. Incredibly useful for when there are many programs open.
Hi Michael (and other contributors eg. translators), thank you for your support and developing such a great app and the new windhawk mods.
I’ve used the the 7+ taskbar tweaker for several years now and can’t imagine how it feels when using the standard config from Windows…
The following is a long shot regarding a feature wish.
The past week I’ve been searching for a different kind of taskbar tweaker app, yet couldn’t find one. It deals with my hoarding of tasks, I’ve got two rows of tasks (uncombined with labels, ungrouped), up to 30 tasks or more (W7 and W10). Mostly at work as an application administrator (ok, at home I bring my work habit as well…): at one time I am doing an action which requires several windows (=tasks at the taskbar), yet during that action a second or a third action pops up, ending with multiple windows/tasks, while the actions may not have been finished.
I would like to see a “visual grouping of tasks per action”; for instance one action has a task for a search in Outlook, a task for Excel with an issue list; second action has a task for Outlook inbox, Excel with a sql output, Notepad for notes, browser for the application; third action has Notepad, browser window.
I know I could work with virtual desktops from Windows (should be good for focus time I’ve heard), but I still would like to have the full overview.
You could mirror it as having 3 browser windows, each having tabs for which each tab represents the task; or 3 Excel windows with tabs etc. But with all the tabs in eye sight.
I think of the following ideas as to put it in action:
So perhaps a seperator between “action-tasks”-groups or a color scheme per each “action-task”-group.
It just would increase my productivity, desktop organisation/overview and workflows.
This approach feels more logical in the way of working, instead of searching through a stacked/combined list of tasks from an application button.
Or should I look for a different OS? Ubuntu with workspaces etc? ;^]
Thanks in advance from the Netherlands.
Best regards,
George
Or perhaps another visitor has any ideas if such an app exists?
Thanks in advance.
Hi George,
That would be great, I’d also be happy to have a solution similar to that you described. For now, I’m not familiar with such a solution, and I mostly use virtual desktops to stay organized.
I had the idea that taskbar groups similar to Chrome’s tab grouping might work well, but I don’t think anyone ever implemented something like that for the taskbar.