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.
scoop bucket add HideDesktopApps https://github.com/Londopy/HideDesktopApps
scoop install HideDesktopApps-
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, and profile switches.
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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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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).
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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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About — version, build target, links, "Copy debug info" button.
Taskbar hidden and can’t reach the tray
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.