How to toggle the auto-hide status of the Windows taskbar

Question

I use Windows 8 on my desktop. Currently I have to move my mouse over the taskbar, right click, click on properties, click on auto-hide the taskbar, and then click OK. This is a real pain if you want to toggle this status between on and off several times during the day. In fact, it's unworkable, so it stays on by default and wastes a lot of screen real estate when I don't need it.

Is there a better way?

(If it helps, I use Autohotkey.)

Answer 1

Here is an AutoHotKey script to make Win+b into a hotkey that toggles the taskbar auto-hide setting:

VarSetCapacity(APPBARDATA, A_PtrSize=4 ? 36:48)

#b::
   NumPut(DllCall("Shell32\SHAppBarMessage", "UInt", 4 ; ABM_GETSTATE
                                           , "Ptr", &APPBARDATA
                                           , "Int")
 ? 2:1, APPBARDATA, A_PtrSize=4 ? 32:40) ; 2 - ABS_ALWAYSONTOP, 1 - ABS_AUTOHIDE
 , DllCall("Shell32\SHAppBarMessage", "UInt", 10 ; ABM_SETSTATE
                                    , "Ptr", &APPBARDATA)
   KeyWait, % A_ThisHotkey
   Return

If you wish to use a different key or key combination than Win+b, change the #b before the double colons in line 3 to whatever hotkey you want (using the syntax in the AutoHotKey documentation).

Answer 2

I found a program called "Taskbar Control" thats lets you set a Taskbar Autohide toggle key.

http://www.thefreewindows.com/3252/hide-completely-the-windows-taskbar-using-a-hotkey-and-unhide-it-with-taskbar-control/

Note: Make sure you download "Taskbar AutoHide Control" version if you want your current window to auto-fill the space.

Answer 3

To autohide the taskbar from a cmd prompt or in a .cmd or. bat file:

Windows 7 (StuckRects2)

powershell -command "&{$p='HKCU:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects2';$v=(Get-ItemProperty -Path $p).Settings;$v[8]=3;&Set-ItemProperty -Path $p -Name Settings -Value $v;&Stop-Process -f -ProcessName explorer}"

Windows 10 (StuckRects3)

powershell -command "&{$p='HKCU:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3';$v=(Get-ItemProperty -Path $p).Settings;$v[8]=3;&Set-ItemProperty -Path $p -Name Settings -Value $v;&Stop-Process -f -ProcessName explorer}"

Explanation

The registry key which stores this value also stores a number of other settings. Since we only want to change position 9 ($v[8] in the cmd) of that registry setting, we need to preserve the other settings.

Normally from cmd, it's enough to use a reg add command to modify the registry, but we use powershell because it makes it easy to preserve the other settings stored under the same registry key.

Explorer also needs to be restarted to pick up the change. We use Stop-Process because Windows automatically restarts Explorer when it is stopped.

Note: change $v[8]=3 to $v[8]=2 in the commands above to undo this change (if you want the taskbar to be always visible).

Answer 4

Try this little program that I found a while ago. 'Tis amazing. It toggles the taskbar shown or hidden with Alt-T, and you can set it to start up with windows as well.

http://www.aviassin.com/taskbareliminator

It's called Taskbar Eliminator and it works for both Win7 and Win 8

Answer 5

I wanted something that does basically what that AHK script does but didn't want to install AHK just for this and also didn't want another background process listening for a hotkey and so ended up making this tool to toggle taskbar auto-hide. I'm persnickety about how the taskbar behaves whilst toggling with maximized windows so none of the existing tools satisfied me.

Answer 6

"taskbar real toggle"

The AutoHotKey script above in the best answer works fine. On my PC I combined it with

http://www.itsamples.com/taskbar-hider.html

(v1.2)

This taskbar hiding application lets me choose the hotkey to hide the taskbar. I mapped the AutoHotKey-hotkey to Win+A and the TaskBar Hider to Win+Y. So now when I press Win+Y, Win+A the taskbar toggles without popping up again when I accidentally the bottom pixel; when I press Win+Y, Win+A again it comes back and stays there no matter where I put the mouse cursor and it's just great. A one-key solution would be even better though with the two hotkeys so close together it's really manageable.

Maybe there is a better (one-key-) solution using just AutoHotKey?

Answer 7

I couldn't get the AutoHotKey script from Gray to work for me on Win 8.1, so I made one. Put this in a .ahk file

Windows 8.1 version:

Run, %SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll`,Options_RunDLL 1
WinWait, Taskbar and Navigation properties, 
IfWinNotActive, Taskbar and Navigation properties, , WinActivate, Taskbar and Navigation properties, 
WinWaitActive, Taskbar and Navigation properties, 
Send, {ALTDOWN}u{ALTUP}{ALTDOWN}a{ALTUP}{ESC}
Exit

Windows 10 version (tested on version 10.0.17134.523 1/13/2019):

#NoEnv
#Warn  ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
SendMode Input  ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.

Run ms-settings:taskbar
WinWait, Settings, 
WinWaitActive, Settings, , 3
if ErrorLevel
{
    MsgBox, WinWait timed out.
}

CoordMode, Pixel, Client 
WinGetPos, X, Y, Width, Height
;OutputDebug, Width Height %Width% %Height%

; Wait for Settings UI to load
Sleep 500

if (Width <= 735)
{
    Send {TAB}{TAB}{space}
}
else
{
    Send {TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{space}
}

;Close the settings UI
Sleep 150
Send !{F4}

Exit

(You may need to adjust the sleep durations if they are not long enough on your system. There is probably a better way to detect when the UI has loaded besides sleeping, but I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't detect the text box control in the UI. I tried to detect a color pattern but the end user has control of the color scheme.)

Answer 8

Yes you can download this great tool called " Hide Taskbar" , which gives you a shortcut " Ctrl+Esc" (by default, you can change it) to hide/unhide the taskbar

download here

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/hide-taskbar-windows-7-hotkey

Answer 9

Another for AHK (autohotkey).

Toggle using F12 as a hotkey.

Tested on Win10 Home 22H2, build 19045.2130

f12::
RegRead, TaskbarToggle, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3, Settings
    If (TaskbarToggle = "30000000feffffff02800000030000003e0000001e000000000000001a04000080070000380400006000000001000000")
        RegWrite, REG_BINARY, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3, Settings, 30000000feffffff03800000030000003e0000001e000000000000001a04000080070000380400006000000001000000
    else ; If (TaskbarToggle = 30000000feffffff03800000030000003e0000001e000000000000001a04000080070000380400006000000001000000)
        RegWrite, REG_BINARY, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3, Settings, 30000000feffffff02800000030000003e0000001e000000000000001a04000080070000380400006000000001000000
process, close, explorer.exe
Return

Answer 10

My two cents, an AHK v2 script, stolen shamelessly from this post form user Teadrinker and adapted to v2 by me (source)

It activates by pressing F12, which will toggle between "autohide" and "always showing". If you want to change the trigger, change line 5

#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0

hide := false

$F12:: {
    global hide
    hide := !hide
    HideShowTaskbar(hide)
}

   
HideShowTaskbar(action) {
   static ABM_SETSTATE := 0xA, ABS_AUTOHIDE := 0x1, ABS_ALWAYSONTOP := 0x2
   size := 2*A_PtrSize + 2*4 + 16 + A_PtrSize
   APPBARDATA := Buffer(size, 0)
   NumPut("int", size, APPBARDATA)
   NumPut("int", WinExist("ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd"), APPBARDATA, A_PtrSize)
   NumPut("int", action ? ABS_AUTOHIDE : ABS_ALWAYSONTOP, APPBARDATA, size - A_PtrSize)
   DllCall("Shell32\SHAppBarMessage", "UInt", ABM_SETSTATE, "ptr", APPBARDATA)
}