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Minimize to tray

Open KoalaBear84 opened this issue 6 years ago • 22 comments
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Minimize to tray by right clicking the minimize button

KoalaBear84 avatar May 09 '19 09:05 KoalaBear84

Thank you for the suggestion.

Would you want this for all windows every time the minimize button is clicked or only for certain apps or documents? For apps with multiple instances, would you want each instance to have a separate notification icon?

indierawk2k2 avatar May 14 '19 20:05 indierawk2k2

For all minimize, but only when right clicking. And every real windows a real icon I think, or it could be an option if possible. I don't know if this is going to be some sort of PowerToys application when released. Because when you do this for browsers and you have 30 tabs open you get 30 icons 😁. But if you have 2 browser windows it would be 2 icons x but you have to minimize then 1 by 1 also.

KoalaBear84 avatar May 14 '19 20:05 KoalaBear84

@KoalaBear84 With at least Windows 10 version 1909, there is a setting in Taskbar that does help reduce the noise. image image I have multiple Chrome and Edge windows open along with a bunch of other stuff. Everything for me is pretty compact.

Does this solve the issue?d

crutkas avatar Dec 05 '19 23:12 crutkas

I always explicitly use the combine if full because I like to see the titles, for example which folder of explorer is open.

I really like to right click a minimize button to get it to go-to the tray area. 😇

KoalaBear84 avatar Dec 06 '19 10:12 KoalaBear84

I'd love for this to be a powertoy

twig avatar Dec 31 '19 10:12 twig

I'd love this feature.

As an example, I have some PWAs installed that I use very often (YouTube Music, Outlook Webmail). However they are minimized most of the time. By minimizing to system tray it would free up space from the taskbar.

There is already an existing open source project doing this: RBTray

jaybi4 avatar Jun 04 '20 09:06 jaybi4

Great. RBTray indeed still works, I've used it in the past. Also PowerMenu, but that one is not working as expected and didn't try RBTray anymore. Thanks!

KoalaBear84 avatar Jun 04 '20 09:06 KoalaBear84

If this feature is added one day, I'd suggest to also add a feature that allows to start an app minimized to tray - very useful for auto start apps that you just want to start in a minimized to tray state

MFlisar avatar Jan 01 '21 21:01 MFlisar

RBTray does not work with all programs - opera etc. I would like to have this added to PowerToys.

dzigner avatar May 05 '21 18:05 dzigner

From #14273 @jfrgagnon with some useful sites

It would be nice to add a "minimizer to systray" fonctions that would be a mixedup between MinimizeToTray that let you choose your keyboard shortcuts and 4t Tray Minimizer that let you see the apps icons in the systray.

crutkas avatar Nov 04 '21 22:11 crutkas

Maybe not the solution for all, but grouping related windows in a virtual desktop helps a lot too. I do that for example like: [Github-and-such; e-mails; music/background]

Jay-o-Way avatar Dec 07 '21 22:12 Jay-o-Way

Minimize to tray with shortcuts for example using Alt + 1 to minimize software to tray and use another for make it open back for example with Alt + 2 and open all minimized with another one like Alt + 3 This software to the same thing but this feature is better to be in PowerToys. it would be better

LycoRyco avatar Jan 19 '22 11:01 LycoRyco

I don't know if it's possible, but if it is, please add different icons (or at least some sort or badge) for different windows of the same software. I regularly use multiple Chrome apps aka Chrome shortcuts e.g., Google Keep and Cambridge Dictionary, each has its own Chrome app, so if you show Chrome's icon for both in the tray, I will be confused whenever I want to get them back. I even use "Lightning Reopen" extension so my Chrome itself has a tray icon in there already as well! Thanks.

aderchox avatar Jun 01 '22 19:06 aderchox

+1 would like to see this feature in powertoys I'm looking for some way to minimize the windows magnifier to the tray so it doesn't permanently hog space on the taskbar and cause trouble in Alt+Tab. I've found a third party tool [https://www.desksoft.com/WindowManager.htm] but it unfortunately has an issue of bringing magnifier back out of the tray anytime a fullscreen application or game is started.

stickynoteme avatar Jan 18 '23 03:01 stickynoteme

Hey!

I want to revive this because a feature to close any specified window to the tray would be invaluable for me. As the description suggests, how I imagine it working, and which would be most intuitive & easy to use way is to move the windows specified in the PowerToy settings to tray when the close button is pressed instead of just closing the window and stopping the app.

It'd be great if it could work with specific installed Microsoft Edge/Chrome apps as well. I tried Actual Window Minimizer and I was able to choose the specific app window and not the whole of Edge, so it did work, but this app is very bloated and I'm already using PowerToys, so it'd be great to have a minimalistic solution bundled in that just simply works. I did look at something like Traymond but that does not "override" the close button so I'll still accidentally close the apps.. :(

If I want to listen to music without cluttering my taskbar during work for instance, this could be really useful!

Arxareon avatar Oct 22 '23 23:10 Arxareon

+1 from me on this feature too. Seems like it would be relatively easy to integrate with RBTray's open code?

jafruts avatar Dec 07 '23 22:12 jafruts

This would be so useful, would love to see it added.

billgan1024 avatar Feb 12 '24 22:02 billgan1024

I want to tray some PWAs

tuyennv-se avatar May 30 '24 06:05 tuyennv-se

A temporary solution I currently use: https://github.com/massCodeIO/massCode/discussions/114#discussioncomment-9093033 Note: Only the first part (without the "StrokesPlus" part) should work as well.

aderchox avatar Jun 10 '24 19:06 aderchox

Until this functionality gets added to PowerToys, you can get it via this free AutoHotKey script (can be compiled into a tiny .exe)
https://junyx.breadfan.de/Min2Tray/

Requires AutoHotKey 1.1 (also free) to run Min2Tray as script or to compile it to an .exe. If Min2Tray is compiled to an .exe, then AutoHotKey is no longer needed. https://autohotkey.com/download/1.1/

jolsen-mitsu avatar Sep 05 '24 13:09 jolsen-mitsu

I was just about to create a separate issue for this (let me know if I should). I think one of the issues that many users can encounter is system tray overflow -- too many apps that live in the system tray already, causing new tray icons to be hidden behind the little 'show hidden' up arrow button on the task bar.

My idea for a solution:

If this tool is incorporated into PowerToys, giving the user the option to minimize multiple apps to a single 'universal' tray icon would be a useful feature to avoid cluttering the system tray and saving space. Then clicking on this icon would present the user with a context menu like, just for example:

image

Taking it a step further, a user could (through a settings menu or config file) have a few 'preset' shortcuts to apps/files that are 'pinned' to this tray's context menu for quick access.

pa-0 avatar Sep 11 '24 22:09 pa-0

This feature would be fantastic! My use case involves apps I keep open for productivity and work, such as G Suite tools (mail, chat, calendar) and messaging apps. Currently, I'm using Minimize2Tray. The concept behind it is great: the ability to minimize specific apps to the system tray, even using wildcards for window titles.

emanuelearena avatar Dec 18 '24 08:12 emanuelearena

If this tool is incorporated into PowerToys, giving the user the option to minimize multiple apps to a single 'universal' tray icon would be a useful feature to avoid cluttering the system tray and saving space. Then clicking on this icon would present the user with a context menu like, just for example:

this is great, and while reading this i also imagined an improvement to this (apologies if this is what you actually said)

but grouping apps on the taskbar and then on hover it would bring up a list like what you showed, and multiple groups can be created.

maybe this can be incorporated into the workspaces powertoy that curerentl exists as well, to open a workspace into a "task group" (group of apps in a single taskbar item)

im not sure if this is applicableto powertoys tho since this means modifying the OS, and im not sure if the current power toys do that, but instead add a mini app to the os instead.

this seems something more suitable for WindHawk perhaps... im not sure

user4302 avatar Jun 26 '25 15:06 user4302