Summary
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Keeping all the system tray icons visible helps me to be aware of what is going on in the background.
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Visual icons are not disorganized if screen space allows and background apps are limited.
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The system tray icon should all be shown by default, as they are important for productivity.
These days people pay attention to the minimum user interface, at the point that they renounce functionality for aesthetics, and I get it. I keep my desktop quite clean. But when it comes to my taskbar, it is a different story; I show every system tray icon, and it is doing a great job for me.
Why do I keep all my system tray icons
If you do not have fluent in Windows’ Lingo, the system is the correct part of the tray taskbar where there are all small icons running in the background. Generally, the system tray only shows some required icons, with the rest a small arrow is hidden in the sub-manu. Think of it as a folder for the background app.
When I first installed Windows 11 on my new PC early this year, I started digging around various settings and felt that all systems are an option to show tray icons. This is not a new feature, but I will not actually consider using it before.
The main reason I have enabled is just to be aware of which apps are active in the background. In some cases, it helps me find out what I want to do when leaving. If i see that Sweat Active, I know that I can immediately press the print screen to take an accurate, cropped screenshot. If this is not the case, I can turn it on or instead I can use Win+Shift+S for a cropped shot, or press the print screen and paste the entire screen into chat to share it quickly with a friend.
It is also worth noting that the background can still consume a lot of system resources such as RAM, CPU processing power and internet bandwidth.
For example, if I forget that the steam is running in the background and a game starts auto-updating, then slows my browsing to a stop, I can take a look at the system tray and quickly find out what is going on. Even though my PC can handle background apps, I am still not non-necessary before launching the game. This is a simple, easy and effective way to squeeze extra performance.
Another advantage is that I can easily see information on apps like slack, as they display a dot on the icon. I also get a subtle update alert for things like graphics drivers and Java.
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This is also more convenient. For example, I have to reset sometimes Signalragub (My Go-Two app to sync RGB) After waking up from sleep or even a cold boot because it sometimes messes up and does not work. Always visible to the icon means that I can simply right-click and close it quickly, which protects me with extra clicks that I have to do otherwise if the app was hidden in the additional icon sub-menu.
It’s not about disorganization
All my background apps shown permanently in the system tray feel that it will be a disorganized mess, it is not really. I am a fairly organized and well -organized person – my desktop is reserved only for installed games, my start menu is sorted in folders, and I have only a few most essential apps that have been pinned in the taskbar.
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In addition, the system tray icons are actually quite small. On my 1440p 27-inch LG monitor and at 125%with UI scaling, they are just the right size that I can tell that they can make those icons without being so big that they take half the screen. My system is difficult to express the size of the tray, but it is only long and tall as my index finger.
He said, the situation may look completely different on a very small display, such as a 12-inch laptop, where the system like my tray will carry a significant part of the tray screen, which will make a mess.
In addition, I do not usually have many apps running in the background. As soon as I am playing, I like to close the video game launcher, and I do the same with the apps related to the work. Only those who are open all the time are discords, signalragb, graphics card software and some peripheral-related apps. On my 14 -inch Dale latitude 5420 laptop, it is just the Intel Graphics Driver, Slack and Asan.
I will look at all these apps and have an easy access to them compared to dealing with a clean but non-functional taskbar. Also, who says that the icons are messed up anyway?
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It should be default
In fact, most people do not run enough background apps to hide behind a separate menu, so I don’t think why this default behavior is. One UI, any UI, should prioritize information first and aesthetics.
The average person would be better than knowing which apps are running in the background, when their computer or internet slows down, because it is not comfortable to click on the arrow to see all the background apps. Someone will assume that Windows will first show you the resource-intensive background apps, but it is not so.
If you decide to go to this route, there is only a small annoyance: an app update (eg discord, which constantly updates), you will need to re -enable it to the settings. No global “always shows all icons” is not an option, just the menu has a per-app togle. Luckily, I got a permanent Fix it on github (Install at your own risk) that automatically maintains all the icons and information that appears in the tray.
