Summary

• Customize your Windows taskbar for a fresh look: make it transparent, more functional, or like macOS Dock with third-party apps.
• Enhance user experience with Start11 to pin folders, ObjectDock for animated icons, or TranslucentTB for a transparent taskbar.
• Have fun with your taskbar by adding personality: move it around the screen, resize it, or enjoy unique animations with ObjectDock.

The taskbar has been a part of Windows for nearly 30 years, having first appeared in Windows 95. It's an incredibly important part of the operating system, serving as a way to manage running tasks, see notifications, and even as a launchpad for your apps. It's evolved and changed a lot over time, but even all these years later, there are some problems with it, with the most obvious one being a lack of customization. Sure, you can change the color and align the icons to the left or the center, but that's about it.

I've tested a few apps that replace or enhance the Windows 11 taskbar, though, and they can really make the experience better. So if you haven't yet, here are a few reasons why customizing the Windows 11 taskbar is a good idea.

Let your wallpaper shine

Why don't we have a transparent taskbar already?

The lack of customization options for the Windows 11 taskbar is a problem for multiple reasons, and one of them is simple aesthetics. While a platform like macOS has the dock, which gives your wallpaper a bit more room to breathe, Windows has always eaten up a portion of the screen with the taskbar, and with the Windows 11 Mica material, you can barely make out any detail from your background through it. All you can really change with your taskbar is the color.

Thankfully, many of the third-party solutions out there give you way more options. If you want something free, TranslucentTB is an excellent app for exactly this. You can replace the Mica effect with a more traditional translucent style, or remove the taskbar background altogether, letting your wallpaper take up the entire screen. Looking at the desktop without a taskbar, and I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't done this yet. Other apps like StartAllBack also offer similar options, but that's a paid app.

Turn it into a powerhouse

It doesn't have to be just for apps

You may know the taskbar as the place where your app icons reside, but did you know it an be so much more than that? Microsoft only lets you pin apps to it, but Stardock's Start11 makes it that much more useful. It's not overly complex, but Start11 makes it so you can pin folders to the taskbar, and they can be more than just links to File Explorer.

Indeed, Start11 has the option to pin something called a folder menu, where the contents of a folder are shown directly from the taskbar, including the ability to open multiple subfolders and see their content. You don't have to open File Explorer and switch contexts to find that one file you want at any given time.

Move the taskbar to different parts of the screen

Windows 11 was a big step back

Another good reason to customize the taskbar, especially on Windows 11, is the ability to actually move and resize it. Windows 11 streamlined a lot of the UI, and the taskbar suffered as a result. Now, it's always stuck at the bottom of the screen and it always has the same size.

But with apps like Start11, you can make it so the taskbar can once again be moved. Now, Start11 doesn't restore the full capabilities, but you can at least have the taskbar at the top of the screen, which is a position many users prefer. Some other solutions also let you move the taskbar to the sides of the screen, but this relies on the fact that Windows 11 still has the old taskbar hidden in its code. Microsoft is removing that with Windows 11 version 24H2, so some of these apps may stop working as they currently do. Start11's taskbar implementation doesn't rely on this, so that one will keep working normally.

Make it more lively

Why not go for something completely different?

What if you want the taskbar to have a bit more personality than being just a literal bar? What if you like the macOS Dock? Well, thankfully, an app called ObjectDock is here for you. This app from Stardock can replace your taskbar with a UI that's more reminiscent of the macOS Dock, meaning you get a series of larger icons (though you can customize the size) without a background. This is another way to give your wallpaper more room to breathe, but it's also much more animated.

The static icons of the Windows taskbar are pretty boring, but ObjectDock has some really neat mouseover animations for the taskbar. B y default, icons will be enlarged as you move your mouse across the dock, which makes the whole experience feel much more fun and alive. It also makes it very easy to see what icon you're about to click, which is also nice. Of course, you can also choose a different animation that's a bit more subtle, and those are still more interesting than what Windows does by default. ObjectDock is a paid app, but it's not expensive, and it definitely adds some welcome flair to the experience.

The Windows taskbar can be much more than it is

Those are the biggest reasons why you might want to customize your Windows taskbar. I know the ability to move the taskbar to a different part of the screen is going to be a big one for some people, though personally, I'm more interested in the stuff that makes the taskbar more fun. I love the idea of a transparent taskbar, so that's one customization I always look for, and it's nice that it can be done for free with TranslucentTB. But I also really love the animations in ObjectDock.

Either way, third-party apps continue to be great ways to make the Windows experience the best it can be, and that clearly holds up for the taskbar as well. I highly recommend checking out some of the apps I mentioned here if you're tired of the Windows 11 taskbar as it is.