How To Make Transparent Taskbar Windows

Tired of looking at the same old boring taskbar in Windows? Is changing wallpapers just not cutting it anymore? There finally is a way to change the way the taskbar looks.

A transparent taskbar gives a premium look and feel to your desktop. It makes your wallpaper look better and gives a floating effect to pinned icons.

Here, we will show you how you can make transparent taskbar windows in both Windows 10 and 11. Then, we will explore easy and advanced apps that do the work just as good if not better.

Table of Contents

From Personalize Settings

Do a right-click on the Desktop and select Personalize.
On the left navigation pane, select Colors.
Under Transparency effects, click on the toggle button to turn it ON.

Using regedit

Press Win + R together to open the Run window.
Type regedit and press Enter.
Inside the Windows Registry Editor, navigate to the following location. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Do a right-click and select DWORD(32-bit value) under New.
Type UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency and press Enter.
Double-click on UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency to change it.
Set the value to 1 as shown and select OK.
Restart your PC to apply changes.

Using Third-party App

While Windows settings can bring the transparency effect to the taskbar, they don’t do the job very well. A third-party app can adjust the transparency or even dive into advanced customization.

TranslucentTB for Beginner Users

Open Microsoft Store from the Start Menu.
Search for TranslucentTB and press Enter.
Select the correct app as shown.
Select Get to start the installation.
Once installed, launch the app to minimize it to system tray.
Do a right-click on the app from the system tray.
Select Exit to disable it.

Classic Shell for Advanced Users

Download and install the Classic Shell application.
Once installed, open Classic Start Menu settings app from the Start Menu.
Click on the Show all settings to turn it on.
Select the Taskbar tab.
Under Taskbar look, change the setting to Transparent.
Under Taskbar opacity, change the setting to value 0.
Press on OK.

Can I Hide My Taskbar Instead of Making It Transparent?

Yes. Windows by default provides an auto-hide feature for your taskbar. Taskbar remains hidden and only pops up when you hover your mouse over the bottom of the screen. To change this setting,

Do a right-click on the Taskbar and select Taskbar settings.
Click on the following options to turn it on:
- Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode.
- Automatically hide the taskbar in tablet mode.

If you want to make the taskbar disappear completely, you need a utility like TaskBar Hider.

Download and extract TaskBar Hider.
Press Windows + X and select Windows Powershell.
Go to the extracted location. E.g. cd C:\Users\Lenovo\Downloads\Compressed\taskbar-hider-64
Type .\TaskBarHider.exe -hide -exit and press Enter.
To bring the taskbar back up, type .\TaskBarHider.exe -show -exit and press Enter.

Can I Change the Position of My Taskbar?

Depending on the Windows version your options on this may be limited. If you are running Windows 10, you have four options. Bottom, Left, Top, and Right. On Windows 11, you are down to two options only, Bottom and Top. Follow these steps to make the position change.