Taskbar Hide

A lightweight Windows 10/11 application to hide/show the taskbar with system tray and CLI control.

Features

• 🎯 Hide/Show Windows 10/11 Taskbar - Complete control over taskbar visibility
• 🖱️ System Tray Icon - Easy access from system tray with menu
• ⌨️ CLI Support - Command-line interface for automation
• 🔒 Single Instance - Prevents multiple instances from running
• 🎨 YASB Compatible - Works with YASB and other custom status bars
• ⚡ Lightweight - ~600 KB, minimal resource usage
• 🚀 No Dependencies - Self-contained executable with static CRT linking
• 💻 Multi-Architecture - Available for x64 and ARM64 Windows

Download

Get the latest release from the Releases page.

Available Formats

• MSI Installer (Recommended) - Installs to Program Files and adds to PATH automatically
• Portable ZIP - Standalone package with executable, LICENSE, and README - no installation needed

Architectures

• x64 - For Intel/AMD 64-bit systems (most common)
• ARM64 - For ARM-based Windows devices (e.g., Surface Pro X, Snapdragon PCs)

Installation

Option 1: MSI Installer (Recommended)

1. Download thide-x64.msi or thide-arm64.msi from the Releases page
2. Double-click the MSI file and follow the installation wizard
3. The application will be installed to C:\Program Files\thide\bin\
4. PATH is configured automatically - you can run thide from any command prompt/PowerShell window
5. Start menu shortcut is created automatically

Uninstall: Use "Add or Remove Programs" in Windows Settings

Option 2: Portable ZIP

1. Download thide-x64-portable.zip or thide-arm64-portable.zip from the Releases page
2. Extract the ZIP file to any location on your system (e.g., C:\Tools\thide\)
3. Run thide.exe from the extracted folder - no installation required!
4. The ZIP includes:
5. thide.exe - The application
6. LICENSE.txt - License information
7. README-PORTABLE.txt - Quick start guide
8. (Optional) Add the folder to your PATH to use CLI commands globally

Usage

GUI Mode

Double-click thide.exe to run in system tray mode:

• The app will hide the taskbar and run in the background
• Look for the icon in your system tray
• Right-click the tray icon to access the menu:
• Show Taskbar - Make taskbar visible
• Hide Taskbar - Hide the taskbar
• Toggle Taskbar - Hide if visible, show if hidden
• Quit - Exit and restore taskbar

CLI Mode

Control the running app from the command line:

# If installed via MSI, you can run from anywhere:
thide start

# If using portable exe, run from the directory or add to PATH:
.\thide.exe start

# Show the taskbar (if app is running)
thide show

# Hide the taskbar (if app is running)
thide hide

# Toggle the taskbar state (if app is running)
thide toggle

# Stop the app and restore taskbar
thide stop

# Enable autostart on Windows login
thide enable-autostart

# Disable autostart
thide disable-autostart

# Show help
thide help

Notes: - MSI users: The thide command works from any location (added to PATH automatically) - Portable users: Run .\thide.exe from the directory, or add the folder to your PATH manually - The start command launches THide in GUI mode if it's not already running - Control commands (show/hide/stop) require the GUI app to be running - Autostart commands use Windows registry

Autostart

Use the built-in CLI command to add THide to Windows startup:

# Enable autostart (adds registry entry)
.\thide.exe enable-autostart

# Disable autostart (removes registry entry)
.\thide.exe disable-autostart

This adds an entry to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable toolchain)
• Windows 10/11
• (Optional) WiX Toolset for building MSI installers

Build Steps

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/amnweb/thide.git
cd thide
cargo build --release

Cross-compile for ARM64 (on x64 machine)

# Add ARM64 target
rustup target add aarch64-pc-windows-msvc

# Build for ARM64
cargo build --release --target aarch64-pc-windows-msvc

# The executable will be at: target\aarch64-pc-windows-msvc\release\thide.exe

Compatibility

• ✅ Windows 11 (Primary target)
• ✅ Windows 10 (Should work)
• ✅ Windows on ARM64 (Native ARM64 builds available)
• ✅ YASB (Yet Another Status Bar)
• ✅ Other custom status bars using Shell_TrayWnd class name

Troubleshooting

Taskbar won't hide

• Ensure you're running the latest version
• Check if another taskbar tool is interfering
• Try running as administrator (usually not needed)

App won't start / "Already running" message

• Check system tray - the app might already be running
• Kill any existing thide.exe processes in Task Manager

YASB/Custom status bar disappears

• This should NOT happen - the app filters by process name
• Please report as a bug with details