How to Hide the Windows 11 Taskbar (Until You Need It)

The Windows 11 taskbar takes up a thick line of space on your screen. Most people don't mind, but there are valid reasons to want it gone. You might want to take advantage of that little bit of extra screen real estate, or focus more completely on your current task without seeing the time, widgets, or icons for other applications.

Whatever your reason, it's not particularly difficult to hide the taskbar. There's a simple way to do this built right into Windows, or you can use a third party application if you want to prevent the taskbar from popping up randomly when you move your mouse to the bottom of the screen.

Hide your taskbar using Windows' settings

To hide your taskbar using the built-in Windows setting, simply right-click an empty place on the taskbar, then click Taskbar Settings. Scroll down until you see Taskbar behaviors and click it. Check the option labeled Automatically hide the taskbar.

This will hide your Windows taskbar with one exception: It will show up if you move your mouse to the bottom of the screen.

Hide your Windows taskbar completely

For most people, the above is going to work perfectly, but not for all. This can, for example, get annoying if an application you're using has buttons at the bottom of the screen that you need to access regularly. As is, it's a little too easy to trigger the taskbar and cover what you're trying to click.

This is where Buttery Taskbar comes in. Launch this application, and the taskbar will disappear. It won't show again if you move your mouse to the bottom of the screen, meaning it will never accidentally cover up something you're working on. It's not gone, though: You can hit the Windows key to open the Start menu, which will also reveal the taskbar, or you can move your mouse to the bottom of the screen and scroll up with the scroll wheel.

There is a taskbar icon you can use to configure the scrolling option and quit the application. I prefer launching this application specifically when I want to work without the taskbar, but you can also set it up to launch with Windows' built-in Task Scheduler if you want. Just open the utility, which you can find in the Start menu, and create a new task. For the trigger, choose "When I log on;" for the action, choose "Start a program," and point it toward Buttery Smooth. Make sure "Run with highest privileges" is checked on the Buttery tab.

From here, you can basically ignore the taskbar until you specifically want to use it, which I like. This is particularly great if you're already using PowerToys Run to launch software instead of the Start menu.