A lightweight Windows system-tray utility that hides and shows desktop icons, the taskbar, and open application windows — perfect for ricing, revealing a Wallpaper Engine wallpaper or cleaning up for a presentation on demand.
Ctrl+Alt+H hides the desktop icons, Ctrl+Alt+T hides the taskbar. Press again to bring everything back.
HideDesktopApps is a small Windows tray app that makes your desktop disappear — and come back — on command.
Press a hotkey (or click the tray icon) and your desktop icons, taskbar, and open app windows all vanish instantly. Press it again and everything is exactly where you left it.
A few things people use it for:
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Windows ricing — toggle the taskbar and icons on and off to match your desktop aesthetic, take clean screenshots, or switch between layouts without touching a single setting
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Streaming / going live — hide your personal windows before your screen goes live, bring them back after with one key press
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Wallpaper Engine — reveal your animated wallpaper without minimising or closing anything
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Presentations — clean up your screen before sharing, no need to manually minimise everything
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Focus mode — use a saved profile to strip away distractions without disrupting your workflow
No install requirements, no runtime, no admin rights needed. Just a single ~5 MB exe that sits in your tray.
Download HideDesktopApps-vX.X.X-x64-setup.exe from the
Releases page
and run it. The installer handles startup registration and notifications.
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Streamers & presenters — hide sensitive apps before going live, restore them after.
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Wallpaper Engine fans — reveal your animated wallpaper with a single hotkey without closing anything.
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Focus / productivity — use profiles (Focus, Presentation, Clean Desktop) to switch states instantly.
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Kiosk displays — tuck away standard OS chrome for a dedicated display without terminating background processes.
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Riced setups — programmatically control the taskbar and icons to match your current layout.
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Three global hotkeys — Ctrl+Alt+H (icons), Ctrl+Alt+T (taskbar), Ctrl+Alt+W (windows). All fully configurable.
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Profiles — save and apply named combinations (e.g. "Focus", "Clean Desktop") from the tray submenu or a dedicated hotkey.
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Dynamic tray icon — colour changes reflect the current hide state at a glance; an orange dot marks a hidden taskbar.
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Auto-start — registers a Task Scheduler job with a configurable delay (default 30 s) so the app starts with Windows without a UAC prompt.
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Windows toast notifications — optional pop-ups for updates, hotkey conflicts, profile switches, and a reminder of how to bring back a hidden taskbar.
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Discord Rich Presence — shows what you’re hiding; clears automatically when everything is visible.
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Auto-updater — checks GitHub Releases on a configurable interval, verifies SHA-256, and does an in-place binary replacement.
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Multi-monitor taskbar — hides and restores the taskbar on all connected monitors.
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Edge reveal — while the taskbar is hidden, push the mouse against the screen edge where it was and it comes back until you move away, so Start and the tray stay within reach. On by default; the installer asks, and Settings → General can switch it off.
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Portable mode — place a file named
portablenext to the exe to keep config local. -
Config migration — automatically imports a legacy
config.inifrom the Python version on first run. -
Single Rust binary, no runtime, ~1–2 MB.
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
Ctrl+Alt+H |
Toggle desktop icons |
Ctrl+Alt+T |
Toggle taskbar |
Ctrl+Alt+W |
Toggle all open windows |
Left-click tray icon |
Toggle desktop icons |
Right-click → Profiles |
Apply a saved profile |
Right-click → Settings… |
Open the settings window |
Right-click → Check for Updates |
Manually trigger an update check |
Right-click → Restart |
Restart the app |
Right-click → Exit |
Restore everything and quit |
| Icon | Meaning |
|---|---|
Four coloured tiles |
Everything visible |
Four coloured tiles + orange dot |
Taskbar hidden |
Grey tiles + red X |
Desktop icons hidden |
Grey tiles + red X + orange dot |
Icons and taskbar hidden |
Right-click the tray icon → Settings… to open a tabbed window:
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Hotkeys — set modifier keys and letter for all three actions; conflicts are detected live.
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Profiles — create, edit, and delete named state snapshots; assign individual hotkeys.
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Startup — toggle auto-start and set the login delay (0–120 s).
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Notifications — master toggle and per-event checkboxes (update, hotkey fail, profile switch, taskbar hidden).
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Updater — channel (stable/beta), check interval, manual check button.
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Discord — enable/disable Rich Presence.
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General — theme, auto-hide on fullscreen, edge reveal for a hidden taskbar, settings backup.
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About — version, build target, links, "Copy debug info" button.
Taskbar hidden and can’t reach the tray
Push the mouse against the screen edge where the taskbar was: it comes back while the mouse stays there (unless edge reveal is switched off).
If the app isn’t running anymore, open Run (Win+R) and type:
powershell -command "Stop-Process -Name explorer -Force"Or just press Ctrl+Alt+T — the hotkey works even without the taskbar visible.
All windows hidden
Press Ctrl+Alt+W again, or right-click the tray icon → Toggle App Windows.
# x64
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
# ARM64 (cross-compiles from x64)
cargo build --release --target aarch64-pc-windows-msvcRequires the windows-latest GitHub Actions runner or a Windows machine with
Visual Studio Build Tools + the relevant MSVC target installed.
HideDesktopApps/ ├── src/ Rust source │ ├── main.rs │ ├── config.rs │ ├── ui/ egui settings window │ └── ... ├── assets/ │ ├── installer.iss Inno Setup script │ └── demo.gif README demo animation ├── scoop/ │ └── HideDesktopApps.json Scoop manifest ├── winget/ │ └── manifests/ WinGet manifest tree ├── .github/workflows/ CI (ci.yml) + release (release.yml) ├── Cargo.toml ├── LICENSE ├── LICENSE-COMMERCIAL └── README.adoc this file
MIT for personal and open-source use. See LICENSE-COMMERCIAL for commercial licensing.