Make Taskbar Totally Transparent With Blur in Windows 10

By default, Windows 10 comes with an opaque taskbar. The user can enable transparency for the taskbar, and even increase the transparency level with a Registry tweak. Many users would like to make the taskbar totally transparent and retain the blur effect. In this article, we will see how it can be done.

As you may already know, there is an option in Settings which enables transparency for the taskbar, Start Menu, and Action Center. It is covered in detail here:

How to make taskbar transparent in Windows 10

Also, you can increase the taskbar transparency level. However, you can’t make the taskbar totally transparent and use blur in this mode to make it look like Windows 7's taskbar with Aero Glass enabled. Thankfully, there is a third-party tool which will allow changing the taskbar appearance to what we need. Here are the simple steps you need to perform.

Make Taskbar Totally Transparent With Blur in Windows 10

1. Firstly, download TranslucentTB from its GitHub page. Pick the latest release.
2. Double-click on the zip file you downloaded, and extract all the files to any folder you want. This folder will store the application.
3. Double-click the TranslucentTB.exe and run it.
4. Right-click on the TranslucentTB.exe's tray icon to adjust its options according to your preferences.

You are done.

The default look will be as follows:

By default, the blur effect is applied to the taskbar. See the screenshot.

You can disable it using the right-click menu of TranslucentTB. Select the 'clear' option to make the taskbar totally transparent in Windows 10. You will get the following appearance:

Finally, an interesting option is "Dynamic Windows". It combines the two options mentioned above. When no maximized windows open on the Desktop, the taskbar appears totally transparent. When you maximize a window, the taskbar looks like frosted glass.

The application is open-source and free of charge. It supports a number of command line options exposed here: command line options. The options significantly extend the app functionality. For example, you can colorize the taskbar with a custom color. A special option, "--tint COLOR", specifies the color applied to the taskbar. COLOR is 32 bit number in hex format, see explanation below. The color parameter is interpreted as a three or four byte long number in hexadecimal format that describes the four color channels 0xAARRGGBB ([alpha,] red, green and blue). These look like this: 0x80fe10a4 (the '0x' is optional). You often find colors in this format in the context of HTML and web design, and there are many online tools to convert from familiar names to this format.

Some examples:

Start with Windows, start transparent:
TranslucentTB.exe --startup --transparent --save-all

Run dynamic windows mode, with the supplied color
TranslucentTB.exe --tint 80fe10a4 --dynamic-ws tint

Will be normal when start is open, transparent otherwise.
TranslucentTB.exe --dynamic-start

Tip: If you are a Classic Shell user, you can achieve nearly the same using the app. I've covered the Classic Shell option some time ago in the article Get a completely transparent taskbar in Windows 10.

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