Moving the Taskbar to a Different Edge of the Screen

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated June 29, 2015)

4

The Taskbar is an important part of the Windows interface. It normally appears at the bottom of the screen and includes the Start menu button, links to frequently used programs, Taskbar buttons for currently running programs, and a Notification area that includes lots of configuration icons.

You can instruct Windows to place the Taskbar along a different edge of the screen, if you are so inclined. To move the Taskbar to a different location, follow these steps:

  1. Right click somewhere within a blank area of the Taskbar. (Don't right-click one of the icons on the Taskbar; right-click an area that contains no icons.) Windows displays a Context menu.
  2. Choose Properties from the Context menu. Windows 7 displays the Taskbar tab of the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box. Windows 8 displays the Taskbar tab of the Taskbar and Navigation Properties dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Taskbar tab of the Taskbar and Navigation Properties dialog box.

  3. Use the Taskbar Location on Screen drop-down list to choose where the Taskbar should appear: Bottom, Top, Left, or Right.
  4. Click OK.

The Taskbar is immediately moved to the edge of the screen you indicated in step 3.

There is another way to move the Taskbar, as well. All you need to do is to unlock the Taskbar on the Taskbar tab of the dialog box shown above. Then you can "drag and drop" the Taskbar to any of the four screen edges. Just point to an unused area of the Taskbar, click and hold the mouse button, and drag the Taskbar to the desired edge. When you release the mouse button, the Taskbar stays at that location.

 This tip (10860) applies to Windows 7 and 8.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He  is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is three more than 8?

2015-06-30 19:00:19

Kevin

Have tried it for a day now and its terrific.
Can I move the Excel ribbon from the top over to the side as well?

2015-06-29 12:29:07

Scott Renz

I move it to the right edge when the task bar is hiding things that I must click. But then later, I find that it being on the right edge is hiding someting that I must click, and I move it back to the bottom. I generally leave it in place to where I moved it until it is a problem.

2015-06-29 12:03:56

Dave Perry

I'm running Win 8.1, and I have the taskbar set to auto-hide. (I've done it that way since at least Win98.) But I find it almost impossible to activate (raise) the taskbar using touch only. Almost always need to resort to the mouse/touchpad to get it to show. Does anyone know if there's an easy way to activate a hidden task bar in Win 8.1 using touch?

Thanks,

Dave Perry

2015-06-29 06:35:44

MWilson

Although we are all used to the Taskbar located across the bottom of our screens, locating it on the left hand edge of the screen frees up more usable viewing area on your desktop.

With today's rectangular monitor and laptop screen layouts, most of the operating programs make more use of the height of the screen than the width. e.g. If you are using Word, chances are your document doesn't fill the width of the screen, but you can easily make it fill the height . . . and would use more of that height if it were available.

So I find that by shifting the Taskbar to the left edge of the screen gives me back more valuable viewing 'real estate' in height and takes nothing away from the in use width of the screen.

Try it -- it is a little unusual at first but after a few days you will be used to it and get more use of the available height to scroll down in your documents and files.

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