Always Show All Tray Icons in Windows 10

In Windows 10, many classic Control Panel options were moved to the Settings app. Options related to the taskbar were moved there as well. This is the case since at least build 14271, which is part of Windows 10 "Anniversary Update" (Redstone 1) branch. Let's see how to make Windows 10 always show all tray icons on the taskbar using Settings.

But default, Windows 10 hides new icons in a special tray in order to keep the taskbar clean. All the new icons are hidden in a panel which can be opened by clicking on the up arrow icon as shown below.

If you have a wide screen or small number of icons, it will be useful to have them visible all the time.

There is a special option to make them visible. There are two methods to enable them.

To always show all tray icons in Windows 10, do the following.

1. Open Settings.
2. Go to Personalization - Taskbar.
3. On the right, click on the link "Select which icons appear on the taskbar" under Notification area.
4. On the next page, enable the option "Always show all icons in the notification area".

Tip: If you do not like using the Settings app, there still exists the ability to open the classic Notification Area Icons dialog. Press Win + R to open the Run dialog and type the following in the Run box:

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

Press the Enter key. The next window will be familiar to many users:

There, tick the option "Always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar".

See the following article for reference: How to access classic notification area (tray icon) options in Windows 10.

Finally, it is possible to apply a Registry tweak to make all tray icons visible all the time. Here is how.

1. Open Registry Editor (see how).
2. Navigate to the following Registry key:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

   Tip: How to jump to the desired registry key with one click.

3. On the right, create or modify the 32-bit DWORD value named EnableAutoTray.
   
   Set it to 0 to show all notification area icons on the taskbar.
   A value data of 1 will hide new icons (this is by default).
4. To make the changes done by the Registry tweak take effect, you need to sign out and sign in to your user account.

That's it.

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