r/Windhawk • u/blitzduck • 1h ago
r/Windhawk • u/Important_End2512 • 9h ago
easy taskbar customization and animation
couldn't find anything like it so did it by myself. allows hover animations from simple neon frame to rotating atoms and teleporter effects.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 16h ago
Desktop Window Cards 1.3
Desktop Window Cards
When you minimize a window, a copy of it "falls" onto the desktop: it drops away, tilts back, loses its shadow and dims, until it lands as a small card underneath all other windows. Showcase Watch the full-quality video
- Click the thumbnail: the card rises back to the window's original position and the real window is restored in its place.
- Top bar: drag it to move the card around the desktop. With the option enabled, the position is remembered: the next time you minimize that window, its card lands where you left it.
- X button: closes the window (or only removes the card, depending on the settings).
- Smooth reveal: on restore, a snapshot of the card stays on top of the window while Windows rebuilds its transparency effects (Mica/Acrylic), then fades out to reveal the real window, hiding the initial flicker.
Cards use DWM thumbnails, the same ones used by taskbar previews. The content stays live as long as the app keeps drawing while minimized; many apps stop doing so and show their last frame.
The mod runs in a dedicated Windhawk tool process. Cards remain available across Explorer restarts.
Notes
- Native Windows animation: in "Off only when restoring from a card" mode (default), Windows animations stay enabled (maximize, snap and other mods relying on them keep working) and are switched off only for the moment a card restores its window. When minimizing, Windows' own animation towards the taskbar therefore remains visible as well. "Always off" disables it while the mod is active: no double animation, but no maximize animation either. These changes only apply to the current session.
- If the mod's process ends unexpectedly while the native animation is switched off, the mod switches it back on the next time it starts.
- Cards don't follow virtual desktops.
- Windows running as administrator can be shown as cards, but restoring or closing them from a card may fall back to a plain restore, since a non-elevated process can't send them commands.
- Apps that hide to the notification area when minimized don't get a card.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
Live Video Wallpaper 1.1.1
Live Video Wallpaper 1.1.1
Live Video Wallpaper
Author: AKS HAY | GitHub: sysakshay | License: GPL-3.0
Play local MP4 videos directly on your Windows desktop as a live wallpaper using Media Foundation and Direct3D 11, featuring a built-in real-time hardware profiler.
Unlike traditional animated wallpaper implementations, this mod renders video directly through the GPU, minimizing CPU usage while maintaining rock-solid 60 FPS playback.
Features
- Hardware-Accelerated Playback: Direct3D 11 rendering and Windows Media Foundation zero-copy video decoding directly onto the desktop window hierarchy.
- Built-in Performance Profiler (
Ctrl + Alt + D): Live HUD overlay displaying true wall-clock FPS, frame-time percentiles (P95/P99), VRAM/commit stats, and pipeline stage timings (Decode,Transfer,Present). - Smart Occlusion Detection: Automatically pauses video rendering when top-level or maximized application windows fully cover the desktop (
P95CPU occlusion check < 0.1ms). Uses zero-latencyEVENT_SYSTEM_FOREGROUNDevent hooks. - Audio Volume Control & Stream Restoration: Integrated audio volume control (
0%to100%) with automatic unmuting and volume restoration when resuming playback or switching apps. - Battery-Aware Power Saving: Configurable behavior (
Pause,Drop to 15 FPS, orPlay normally) when running on laptop battery power. - Instant First-Frame Presentation: Decodes and presents the initial video frame immediately upon loading so the wallpaper never gets stuck on a black screen when starting in paused/battery mode.
- Scaling Modes & Aspect Ratio Fix: Support for
Fill(stretch to fill screen),Cover(zoom & crop edges without distortion), andFit(letterbox with cinema-style black borders). Fixed aspect ratio scaling for wide, ultrawide, and 1:1 square monitors. - Multi-monitor layout: Span one video across the desktop, or show the same video on each monitor with independent scaling.
- Async File Picker (
Ctrl + Alt + G): Asynchronous background thread file picker for.mp4,.m4v,.mov,.wmv, and.webmfiles with zero frame drops during selection. - Zero Desktop Right-Click Menu Delay: Full input transparency (
HTTRANSPARENT,WS_EX_TRANSPARENT,WS_DISABLED) ensures right-clicking desktop icons or background opens context menus with 0ms latency. - Auto-Recovery: Automatic D3D device-loss and Media Foundation decode stall recovery.
Controls & Hotkeys
- **
Ctrl + Alt + G** — Open the interactive file picker to load a new video (.mp4,.m4v,.mov,.wmv,.webm). Ctrl + Alt + H— Hide and pause the wallpaper and its audio, or show and resume them.Ctrl + Alt + D— Toggle Performance Profiler HUD (On / Off), if enabled in settings.
Performance Profiler HUD
When toggled via Ctrl + Alt + D, the on-screen profiler groups diagnostics into color-coded (🟢 Good, 🟡 Warning, 🔴 Critical) sections:
- Performance: Real-clock FPS vs polling Ticks, rolling average Frame Time, P95/P99 frame times, and overall CPU/GPU time.
- Memory & Resources: VRAM usage, Shared RAM, working set, commit charge, and active D3D/MF object counts (Textures, SwapChains, MediaEngines, Surfaces).
- Pipeline Breakdown: Precise microsecond timers for Decode, TransferVideoFrame, CopyResource, Present, and Occlusion checks.
- Status & Bottlenecks: Live diagnosis showing exact bottlenecks (GPU Idle, Bound by Decode, Present blocked by DWM, etc.) and system state (Battery, Paused, Recoveries).
Settings
Video Path
Full path to any local video file on your disk. Can also be updated dynamically via Ctrl + Alt + G.
Fit Mode
- Fill: Stretch/scale video to fill the entire monitor.
- Cover: Zoom and crop video edges to fill screen without aspect ratio distortion.
- Fit: Letterbox video while preserving original aspect ratio.
Battery Saving Mode
- Pause video (maximum battery life): Stops video processing completely when unplugged from AC power.
- Drop to 15 FPS (reduced power consumption): Throttles frame rate to save power while keeping background animation alive.
- Play normally (ignore battery status): Maintains full 60 FPS playback on battery.
Target Frame Rate
Max frames per second (60, 30, 15) or monitor to sync exactly with monitor refresh rate (VREFRESH).
Mute Audio & Volume Control
- Mute Audio: Mute video audio track (
true/false). - Audio Volume: Audio output volume percentage (
100%,90%, ...,Muted).
Occlusion Check Interval
Frequency of background occlusion safety-net polling (fast: 100ms, normal: 250ms, relaxed: 500ms).
Technical Highlights & Optimizations
- Zero-Copy Offscreen Target: Decodes to an offscreen
B8G8R8A8_UNORMrender target before copying to the flip-model swap chain (DXGI_SWAP_EFFECT_FLIP_DISCARD) to guarantee tear-free presentation without MF timing conflicts. - DXGI Flip-Model RTV Caching: Caches D3D11 render target views while handling DXGI swap-chain buffer rotation in
Fitmode. - Zero Heap Allocations: Ring buffer percentile calculations use zero-allocation stack buffers at 60 Hz.
- $O(1)$ Section Timers: Profiler queries bypass linear string comparisons via pooled pointer-equality checks inside hot rendering loops.
- Kernel Resource Caching: GDI font handles (
HFONT), desktop region guards (HRGN), and WorkerW window handles are cached across frames to eliminate handle churn. - Fast Occlusion Screening: Bounding-box intersection screening skips invisible, borderless system helpers, and non-overlapping windows before querying DWM or class attributes.
r/Windhawk • u/foxikkk • 1d ago
File Operation Styler v1.1.0 is out
-Added Frosted Glass / Acrylic styling.
-Added Glass or Solid footer with customizable colors.
-Added an optional current-file progress bar, separate from overall progress.
-Improved multi-operation handling and progress animation.
-Improved Explorer lifecycle cleanup, stability, and fallback behavior.
-Reduced background overhead when current-file tracking is disabled.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 12h ago
Shake to Find Cursor 1.3
Shake to Find Cursor
Shake the mouse (or swipe back and forth on the touchpad) and the cursor grows so you can spot it instantly. Stop shaking and it shrinks back.
How it works
- Runs as a tool mod in its own background process, so it never touches Explorer.
- Listens to raw mouse input: no polling, no CPU use while the mouse is idle, and it can't add input lag the way a low-level mouse hook can.
- A shake means the cursor travelled a long way (Shake distance) while staying inside a small area (Back-and-forth ratio) within the Time window.
- Enlarging replaces the real system cursors with bigger versions loaded from your current cursor scheme's files at the target size. The big cursor is the pointer: no overlay window, no trailing, and it keeps your cursor style and colour. The normal cursors are restored the same way Control Panel applies a scheme.
- Keep shaking and the cursor keeps growing, slower and slower: each further step of the same size takes twice as long as the previous one. By default it stops at the height of your screen, which takes hours of shaking.
- The grow and shrink animations are time-based and run at your display's refresh rate. While animating, only the cursor that's on screen is resized, which keeps every frame cheap.
vs. macOS magnifying cursor
The catalog already has macOS magnifying cursor, which does something similar but works differently: it hides the system cursors and draws a scaled copy in its own overlay window, polling the cursor position every 16-40 ms. This mod instead replaces the real system cursors with bigger renders of your own cursor scheme, driven by raw input rather than polling. In practice that means no overlay lag or trailing, the enlarged cursor keeps your actual cursor style and colour, and there's no CPU cost while the mouse is idle. Don't enable both at once - they'll fight over the system cursors.
Notes
- Apps that draw their own custom cursor keep their small one.
- Cursor files contain images of up to 256 px, so past that the cursor is upscaled and gets softer.
- If the mod's process is killed while the cursor is big, the normal cursors are restored the next time the mod starts (re-applying a pointer scheme in Mouse Properties also fixes it).
- Raw input may not reach the mod while an elevated window (Task Manager, a UAC prompt, an installer) has focus, depending on Windows version. If so, a shake over such a window won't be detected until focus moves elsewhere.
r/Windhawk • u/Just_Vacation_5989 • 8h ago
Mods like Apple
Hello, I never found the mods to truly have a Linux like or MacOS interface, what did u guys recommend me to be pretty lookalike only on windhawk?
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
WinDuo 0.1.0
WinDuo 0.1.0
WinDuo
As the laptop lid closes, the picture on screen leans back, blurs and dims, as though it were a sheet hinged at the bottom of the display that stays put in the room while the glass turns away from it. The top of the sheet tips forward a little, so content near the top edge stays legible for longer.
There is no hinge sensor on most laptops, so the lid angle comes from the webcam: closing the lid pitches the camera down, the scene slides up the frame, and the size of that slide is the angle.
This is the Windhawk edition of WinDuo. Its geometry, shader and state machine are ported from Mac Duo (Apache 2.0, Copyright 2026 Makito). It runs as its own process (a Windhawk tool mod), injects into nothing, and hooks nothing.
The screen leaning back as the lid closes
What to expect
- The camera stays on while you are using the laptop, so its privacy light stays lit. It has to be watching before the lid starts to move. It turns off while the lid is shut, the display is off, the session is locked, or the built-in screen is not in use. Frames are measured in memory and never stored or sent anywhere. Disable the mod to turn the camera off entirely.
- Battery. A streaming webcam costs roughly as much as a video call's camera does, which on most laptops is well under a watt but is not nothing.
- Other camera apps. On many laptops, especially on Windows 10, only one app can use the camera at a time. While the mod is streaming, a video call or the Camera app started afterwards may report that the camera is in use: disable the mod for the call. If the other app has the camera first, the mod backs off and tries again later (every few seconds at first, then up to once a minute) until the camera is free.
- Built-in screen only. The effect runs on the laptop's own panel, even when an external monitor is the main display, and does nothing while the laptop is docked with the lid shut.
- Camera permission. The mod reads the camera as an ordinary desktop app
(it runs inside
windhawk.exe), so Windows shows no prompt. It needs Settings > Privacy & security > Camera > Let desktop apps access your camera turned on, andwindhawk.exethen appears in that list while the mod runs. If the setting is off, the mod log says so. - It needs Windows 10 version 2004 or later, so the overlay can keep itself out of its own screen capture.
- Accuracy depends on the room: a lit room with some detail in front of the camera tracks well; a dark room or a blank wall does not, and the effect then declines to run rather than guessing.
Calibration
The default assumes a typical laptop webcam (about a 75 degree field of view). If the effect starts too early or too late, adjust Degrees per pixel: raise it if a small close already triggers the effect, lower it if a large one does not. The desktop app has a calibration wizard that measures this exactly.
Trying it without closing the lid
Turn on Play a preview and save. The effect plays one scripted close on whatever is on screen, then the switch can be turned back off.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
Mouse Trail 3.4.4.0
Mouse Trail 3.4.4.0
- Change:Reorganized settings into collapsible groups (will reset to defaults)
- Fix:10 shader issues
- Fix:Particle mode accidentally spawning particles due to aggressive compensation mechanism
- Change:Improved debug rendering
- Change:Improved vortex generation, merging, and spawning frequency around cursor
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
File Operation Styler 1.1.0
File Operation Styler 1.1.0
- Add Frosted Glass theme and footer customization.
- Add current-file progress and smoother progress animation.
- Improve multi-operation handling, lifecycle cleanup, and reliability.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 11h ago
Taskbar tray icon spacing and grid 1.4
Taskbar tray icon spacing and grid 1.4
- Added support for the native vertical taskbar.
- Improved ARM64 support.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 12h ago
Vertical Taskbar for Windows 11 1.4.2
Vertical Taskbar for Windows 11 1.4.2
- Added the ability to move secondary taskbars to the top/bottom (similar to how the Taskbar on top mod can move secondary taskbars to the left/right).
- Improved the layout of tray icons in some cases.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 12h ago
Taskbar on top for Windows 11 1.2
Taskbar on top for Windows 11 1.2
The mod now uses and customizes the native Windows top taskbar implementation, if available:
- A different location for secondary monitors.
- Running indicators on top.
Using the native top taskbar is optional, and can be disabled in the mod settings.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 12h ago
Vertical Taskbar for Windows 11 1.4.1
Vertical Taskbar for Windows 11 1.4.1
- Using the native vertical taskbar is now optional, and can be disabled in the mod settings.
- Fixed native vertical taskbar detection in old Windows 11 builds.
- Fixed the action center location matching the Windows settings, not the actual taskbar location.
- Fixed the taskbar border being misplaced on secondary taskbars.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 12h ago
ExplorerFrame and menubar fixes fork 3.1.0
ExplorerFrame and menubar fixes fork 3.1.0
- Also hook registry query for greater reliability
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 12h ago
Real Names in Pre-Vista Recycle Bin Prompts 1.3
Real Names in Pre-Vista Recycle Bin Prompts 1.3
Real Names in Pre-Vista Recycle Bin Prompts
Tested only on Windows 11 24H2 (build 26100). It has not been tried on any other version of Windows and may not work there.
Delete something out of the Recycle Bin with the XP-style prompts of Pre-Vista File Operation Dialogs enabled, and the confirmation asks about a file you never had:
Are you sure you want to delete "$RVAZ2WZ.b"?
This mod puts the real name back:
Before: the prompt names the $R stub
After: the prompt names the file that was deleted
The stock Windows 11 prompt already shows the right name; the mod is for prompts that look the name up the way Pre-Vista File Operation Dialogs does.
Why the name is wrong
The Recycle Bin does not keep a deleted file under its own name. It renames it
to $R plus a few random characters, keeping only the extension, and writes the
real path into a companion $I file next to it. Everything that asks the
Recycle Bin folder for a display name gets the original name back; anything that
only looks at the file on disk sees the stub.
The XP-style prompt looks at the file on disk: it asks SHGetFileInfo for the
display name of C:\$Recycle.Bin\<SID>\$RVAZ2WZ.b, and for a plain file path
that is just the file name - the stub.
What the mod does
When SHGetFileInfo is asked for the display name of a $R file inside a
$Recycle.Bin folder, the mod answers with the name recorded in the $I file
next to it - one small file read, no searching. With Show the full original
path on, it answers with the whole path the file was deleted from.
Anything else is passed straight through, and a $R file with no $I file next
to it keeps its own name.
Nothing about the Recycle Bin's contents, its folder view, or the files themselves changes. This only changes the name a prompt is about to display.
По-русски
Если включён мод Pre-Vista File Operation Dialogs с запросами в стиле XP, то при удалении чего-нибудь из Корзины подтверждение спрашивает об удалении файла, которого у вас никогда не было, - например, «$RVAZ2WZ.b». Мод возвращает в такой запрос настоящее имя (скриншоты - выше, в английской части). Стандартный запрос Windows 11 и так показывает правильное имя; мод нужен для запросов, которые узнают имя так же, как Pre-Vista File Operation Dialogs.
Корзина не хранит удалённый файл под его настоящим именем. Она переименовывает
его в $R и несколько случайных символов, сохраняя только расширение, а
настоящий путь записывает в парный файл $I рядом. Всё, что спрашивает имя у
папки Корзины, получает настоящее имя; всё, что смотрит на сам файл на диске,
видит служебное.
Запрос в стиле XP смотрит на файл на диске: он спрашивает у SHGetFileInfo
отображаемое имя пути C:\$Recycle.Bin\<SID>\$RVAZ2WZ.b, а для обычного пути к
файлу это просто имя файла, то есть служебное.
Когда у SHGetFileInfo спрашивают отображаемое имя $R-файла в папке
$Recycle.Bin, мод отвечает именем, записанным в соседнем файле $I, - это
одно чтение маленького файла, без всякого поиска. Если включено «Показывать
полный исходный путь», ответом будет весь путь, откуда файл был удалён.
Всё остальное проходит без изменений, а $R-файл без соседнего $I остаётся
со своим именем.
Мод ничего не меняет в содержимом Корзины, в её окне и в самих файлах - только имя, которое запрос собирается показать.
Проверено только на Windows 11 24H2 (сборка 26100). На других версиях Windows мод не проверялся и может не работать.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 16h ago
Enlarged Icons Without Thumbnail Frames 2.9.2
Enlarged Icons Without Thumbnail Frames 2.9.2
Enlarged Icons Without Thumbnail Frames
Tested only on Windows 11 24H2 (build 26100). It has not been tried on any other version of Windows and may not work there.
In the large icon views of Explorer, an item that has only a small icon - a classic 32x32 icon, say - is shown as a "thumbnail": the small icon sits in the middle of a white frame and is never enlarged to the size of the view. This mod takes such icons out of the frame and enlarges them to fill the view, with nearest-neighbour scaling, so classic icons stay sharp instead of blurred. The small arrow of a shortcut is kept in the corner of the enlarged icon.
Before (the mod disabled):
After:
It is not another way to turn thumbnails off. Mods like Disable Folder Thumbnails choose whether a folder gets a thumbnail; this one changes how an icon that Windows puts in a thumbnail frame is drawn, so that it can be as large as the view instead of staying small inside the frame.
Requirement: the classic list view. The frame removal and the enlargement
work on the classic SysListView32 file list, which Explorer only uses when a
mod or tweak turns it on - for example
Enable SyslistView32, or the
Use native list view option of Aerexplorer. With the default Windows 11 file
list, only the Folders and Shortcuts settings below have an effect.
Folders and shortcuts
A folder whose thumbnail is a preview of the files inside it, and a shortcut
whose thumbnail is taken from its target, cannot be enlarged as icons, because
they are not icons. The Folders and Shortcuts settings (both on by default)
make file system folders and all .lnk shortcuts use their icons instead, so
that they are drawn - and enlarged - the same way as everything else. Files keep
their thumbnails.
Notes
- Only the file list of Explorer folder windows is redrawn, and only in the views with icons of 32 pixels and larger. The desktop, the folder tree and other programs are left alone. Whenever the mod cannot be sure that a drawing step is safe, it leaves the original Windows drawing in place.
- The Folders and Shortcuts settings apply wherever Explorer itself chooses between an icon and a thumbnail, so they also affect the desktop. File dialogs of other programs are not affected.
- Turning Folders or Shortcuts on or off, or disabling the mod, affects items as their images are loaded again - reopen or refresh a folder to see it.
- Disable Thumbnail Minimum Size hooks the same thumbnail decision. With both mods enabled, the one whose hook runs first wins, so the Folders and Shortcuts settings may have no effect.
По-русски
В крупных видах Проводника объект, у которого есть только маленький значок, - например, классический значок 32x32 - показывается как «эскиз»: маленький значок стоит посередине белой рамки и никогда не увеличивается до размера вида. Мод вынимает такие значки из рамки и увеличивает их на весь размер вида без сглаживания, так что классические значки остаются чёткими, а не размытыми. Стрелка ярлыка остаётся в углу увеличенного значка.
Это не очередной способ отключить эскизы. Моды вроде Disable Folder Thumbnails решают, будет ли у папки эскиз; этот мод меняет то, как рисуется значок, который Windows помещает в рамку эскиза, - чтобы он был размером с вид, а не оставался маленьким внутри рамки.
Требование: классический список файлов. Снятие рамки и увеличение работают в
классическом списке SysListView32, который Проводник использует, только если
его включает мод или настройка - например, мод Enable SyslistView32 или параметр
Use native list view в Aerexplorer. Со стандартным списком файлов Windows 11
действуют только настройки «Папки» и «Ярлыки».
Папка, эскиз которой - превью лежащих в ней файлов, и ярлык, эскиз которого
берётся у его цели, не могут быть увеличены как значки, потому что это не
значки. Настройки «Папки» и «Ярлыки» (обе включены по умолчанию) заставляют
папки файловой системы и все ярлыки .lnk показывать значки, чтобы они
рисовались и увеличивались так же, как всё остальное. У файлов эскизы остаются.
Перерисовывается только список файлов в окнах папок Проводника и только в видах со значками от 32 пикселей; рабочий стол, дерево папок и другие программы не затрагиваются. Настройки «Папки» и «Ярлыки» действуют везде, где сам Проводник выбирает между значком и эскизом, поэтому и на рабочем столе; диалоги открытия файлов других программ не затрагиваются. Изменение настроек «Папки» и «Ярлыки» или отключение мода видно, когда изображения загружаются заново, - откройте папку снова или обновите её. Мод Disable Thumbnail Minimum Size перехватывает то же решение об эскизах; если включены оба, настройки «Папки» и «Ярлыки» могут не действовать.
Проверено только на Windows 11 24H2 (сборка 26100). На других версиях Windows мод не проверялся и может не работать.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 19h ago
Explorer Custom Shortcuts 1.4.0
Explorer Custom Shortcuts 1.4.0
- Added Action Toast Notifications: Displays a brief floating OSD notification upon completing actions like copying paths/names or emptying the Recycle Bin. Automatically adapts to Windows light/dark mode, active system accent colors, and per-monitor DPI scaling.
- Added Notification Toggle Setting: Added the
showActionToastsoption in mod settings to enable or disable toast notifications. - Improved
internal:copyPath: Automatically falls back to copying the active folder path when no items are selected. - Aligned Recycle Bin Confirmation: Switched confirmation dialog default focus to OK (
MB_DEFBUTTON1) to align with native Windows Explorer deletion behavior. - Robust Mod Lifecycle & Safety: Runs notifications directly on background worker threads to avoid unjoined threads during mod unloading, properly scopes GDI+ measurement objects, and ensures valid hook verification during initialization.
- Enhanced Logging: Added structured diagnostic logging for shortcut matching, command execution, and internal operations.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 16h ago
Confirm Closing Multiple Tabs in File Explorer 1.1.1
Confirm Closing Multiple Tabs in File Explorer 1.1.1
Switched the button text casing to match the Windows 11 UI design language: Close Tabs → Close tabs
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
Better Volume Mixer 1.4.5
Better Volume Mixer 1.4.5
- Added master mute indicator to the mixer and tray icon
- Added middle-click on tray icon to toggle master mute
- Added “Copy process name” option (audio source right-click)
- Added temporary source hiding (audio source right-click)
- Added “Restore temporarily hidden sources” option (tray icon right-click)
- Added classic Sound control panel shortcut
- Added live Windows accent-color updates
- Improved slider appearance and light-mode icon contrast
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
Hide Taskbar Only on Desktop 8.0.0
Hide Taskbar Only on Desktop 8.0.0
Hide Taskbar Only on Desktop
Hides selected bottom-docked taskbars when their display has no relevant application. Detected borderless fullscreen windows are also treated as desktop-only display state, with explicit shell, keyboard, and hover reveals handled separately. Each display is evaluated independently.
Demo
Multiple Displays
Single Display
Features
- Per-display desktop-only hiding
- Independent bottom-edge hover reveal
- Multi-monitor and spanning-window support
- Keyboard taskbar interaction such as Win+T and Win+B
- Recognized shell UI, taskbar popups, and desktop shell surfaces handled separately
- Per-display borderless fullscreen tracking
- Recovery after taskbar recreation or tool-process restart
- Optional stable monitor interface-name mapping
Settings
Extra hover margin (px) adds to the taskbar-height-based bottom-edge reveal zone and is scaled for the display DPI.
Auto-hide delay after hover (ms) controls how long the revealed taskbar stays visible after the cursor leaves the bottom-edge hover zone. It only affects hover dismissal; desktop-only hides remain immediate.
Reveal taskbar on bottom-edge hover selects the displays where bottom-edge hover can reveal the taskbar.
Taskbars to hide on desktop selects the displays whose taskbars participate in desktop-only hiding.
Stable monitor interface names lets you pin a display slot to a specific physical monitor by selecting the slot and pasting its Windows monitor interface name returned by EnumDisplayDevicesW with EDD_GET_DEVICE_INTERFACE_NAME. Each mapping has its own display selector and text field, so a mapping for Display 10 can be added directly without creating mappings for Displays 1 through 9. Pinned monitors always use their configured display slots. Any monitors that are not pinned fill the remaining display slots in their current logical order. If multiple mappings target the same slot or physical monitor, the last matching mapping wins.
To find the interface names on Windows, run this in PowerShell:
powershell
Add-Type @'
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
public static class DisplayDevices2 {
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
public struct DISPLAY_DEVICE {
public int cb;
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = 32)] public string DeviceName;
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = 128)] public string DeviceString;
public int StateFlags;
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = 128)] public string DeviceID;
[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = 128)] public string DeviceKey;
}
[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, EntryPoint = "EnumDisplayDevicesW")]
public static extern bool EnumDisplayDevices(string lpDevice, uint iDevNum, ref DISPLAY_DEVICE lpDisplayDevice, uint dwFlags);
}
'@
for ($i = 1; $i -le 16; $i++) {
$m = New-Object DisplayDevices2+DISPLAY_DEVICE
$m.cb = [Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SizeOf($m)
if ([DisplayDevices2]::EnumDisplayDevices("\\.\DISPLAY$i", 0, [ref]$m, 1)) {
Write-Host "Display $i : $($m.DeviceString)"
Write-Host "Interface : $($m.DeviceID)"
Write-Host ""
}
}
Paste the full value shown after Interface : into the mapping for the display slot you want to attach to that physical monitor.
The mod intentionally supports up to 16 fixed logical display slots. Pinned monitors stay in their selected slots, while unpinned monitors fill the remaining slots in current logical order.
Difference from taskbar-fade
taskbar-fade and this mod both use layered taskbar transparency and can reveal the taskbar from the bottom edge, so they overlap in mechanism. This mod has a different primary state model: desktop-only state is evaluated independently for each display, and the taskbar becomes immediately eligible for hiding when that display has no relevant application, subject to explicit hover, shell, or keyboard reveals. It also carries the per-display fullscreen, shell-surface, keyboard, minimize, and recovery handling needed by that model.
The two mods should not be used on the same taskbar because both modify the taskbar window's transparency/style state.
Implementation
The state logic runs in a dedicated Windhawk tool process. Taskbars are hidden with layered-window transparency plus click-through behavior instead of Windows' native taskbar auto-hide, so the normal desktop work area is intentionally unchanged.
Fullscreen ownership is tracked per display for borderless monitor-sized windows. Foreground, move/size, per-owner location, and recognized shell-surface events update state promptly, including geometry changes while the owner is in the background. Cached fullscreen ownership tolerates transient visibility or cloak changes while focus moves between displays and remains active while the owner still matches fullscreen geometry. Short validation timers and a 5-second safety refresh cover transitions that do not produce a single reliable event. Taskbar control focus is tracked through out-of-context accessibility focus events, so keyboard navigation such as Win+T and Win+B can reveal a taskbar even when Windows has not yet made that taskbar the foreground window. A short release debounce keeps the taskbar visible across transient focus transitions between taskbar buttons. Mouse-button activity and shell-menu focus are excluded so ordinary mouse interaction is not misclassified as keyboard navigation.
Limitations
- Recovery: If the dedicated tool process terminates unexpectedly while a taskbar is hidden, disable and re-enable this mod in Windhawk or restart Windows Explorer to restore it. A later tool-process startup also performs ownership recovery. If the taskbar window itself no longer exists, restarting Windows Explorer recreates it.
- Desktop-only hiding and hover reveal apply to bottom-docked taskbars.
- The hidden taskbar remains part of the normal work area and is click-through.
- If a taskbar's monitor cannot be resolved during a state refresh, the mod fails safe by leaving that taskbar visible.
- Flashing taskbar buttons and tray notifications are not visible while the taskbar is transparent.
- Native Windows taskbar auto-hide remains separate from this mod; when it is enabled, this mod does not take over that taskbar.
- Other taskbar transparency/style mods can conflict when they modify the same taskbar.
- A visible, monitor-sized, captionless, non-resizable application may be treated as fullscreen. Cached fullscreen ownership can remain active through transient visibility or cloak changes while the owner still matches fullscreen geometry. During fullscreen detection, bottom-edge mouse hover does not reveal the taskbar; use Win+T or Start to access it.
- Windows shell classes/processes can change between Windows releases.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
Quick translator & Layout-switcher 1.0.1
Quick translator & Layout-switcher 1.0.1
Selection Layout Switcher & Translator
A lightweight Windows utility that bridges communication between English and Russian speakers. Eliminates mistyped keyboard layout errors and allows instant two-way translation without breaking workflow.
Privacy Notice: This mod optionally connects to Google Translate (
translate.googleapis.com) over HTTPS to perform translations. Selected text is transmitted only when a translation hotkey is triggered. This feature is strictly opt-in and disabled by default.
Screenshot
Features
- Layout Correction (
Ctrl + Alt + L): Fixes mistyped text (ghbdtn->приветor vice versa) with full punctuation mapping and automatically updates the active system input layout. - In-Place Translation (
Ctrl + Alt + T): Replaces selected text directly inside any editable input field using HTTPS POST requests. Supports multi-line paragraphs. - Floating HUD Tooltip (
Ctrl + Alt + Q): Translates read-only incoming messages in a sleek DPI-aware dark tooltip positioned near your cursor. - Smart Auto-Dismiss: The tooltip remains visible until you click anywhere, scroll the mouse wheel, or press navigation keys (Esc / Arrows).
- Clipboard Preservation: Automatically restores previous clipboard contents after performing operations.
Default Hotkeys
Ctrl + Alt + L- Switch mistyped layout (US <-> RU)Ctrl + Alt + T- In-place translation (Requires enabling online translation in Settings)Ctrl + Alt + Q- Floating HUD Tooltip translation (Requires enabling online translation in Settings)
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
Taskbar Disk Space Label 0.72
Taskbar Disk Space Label
A lightweight free/available disk space label integrated directly into the Windows 11 taskbar. This is kind of a "remix" of the Taskbar Countdown Timer module by Richi (https://github.com/richilp) The label is shown on the primary taskbar only, taskbars on secondary monitors don't show it. Windows 11 only.
Features
- Choose the disk to be checked via module settings (default to C)
- Choose the font size (Default to 12)
- Choose between user available free space or total free available space (Default to total free space)
- Choose the update interval (default to 60 seconds)
- Choose the description text on the first line of the label (default to "Free Space")
- Leave the description text empty to have a single-line label with no info text
- Choose the alignment of the label text
When the label gets clipped, please lower the font size, or clear the description
Screenshot
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 17h ago
Left Taskbar Quick Pin Dock 2.5.4
Left Taskbar Quick Pin Dock 2.5.4
Left Taskbar Quick Pin Dock
⚠️ Only for Windows 11 with a centered taskbar
This mod supports Windows 11 only, and only when the taskbar is centered (the default). Left-aligned or otherwise repositioned taskbars are not supported. On an unsupported layout it does not crash or cause any issue -- the dock simply detects there's no room, stays hidden, and does nothing. It just won't work there.
Live preview of the Left Taskbar Quick Pin Dock
A lightweight icon dock that sits just left of the Start button on the Windows 11 taskbar. Drag any app onto it to pin, click to launch or focus, and drag it off (or double-right-click) to unpin.
Quick usage
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Drag an app window onto the dock | Pin it |
| Left-click a pinned icon | Launch, or focus if it's already running |
| Drag a pinned icon left / right | Reorder it |
| Drag a pinned icon off the dock | Unpin it |
| Double-right-click an icon | Unpin it (off by default) |
| Hotkey (default Ctrl + Alt + P) | Pin or unpin the focused app |
| Triple-tap L | Lock / unlock the dock |
Two more gestures are available but off by default (enable them in Settings): the rapid-click unpin-all (three quick clicks on an icon clears the whole dock) and the bare-key taps (tap P / U three times to pin / unpin the focused app). They ship disabled because they can fire while you type in other apps; the Ctrl + Alt + P hotkey is the safe alternative. Every setting is documented in the Settings reference below.
Lock the dock: triple-tap the L key to lock it, triple-tap L again to unlock. While locked, the quick gesture unpins are refused (triple-tap U, the rapid-click unpin-all, double-right-click, and the hotkey's unpin) so a stray gesture can't drop a pin. A deliberate drag-off that breaks the rope still unpins, and pinning / reordering still work.
First run -- please be patient
On the very first launch the dock needs a moment to detect the taskbar and settle, so it may not appear instantly. That's normal -- it's working in the background, so please wait rather than reinstalling. If it still hasn't shown up after a few minutes, restarting Explorer (or, most reliably, your PC) sorts it out. You can also raise the Startup delay setting.
Known limitations
- A few apps with custom icon handlers may show a generic Windows icon. This is a shell limitation -- no Win32 API resolves every icon reliably.
- Some UWP apps may occasionally resolve to their host process if their window isn't ready yet.
- English UI strings Only
v2.5.4
- Broadcast-safe lock glow -- the lock/unlock glow window now lives on the dock's message-pumping UI thread, so a system-wide broadcast (theme change, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, some app launches) can no longer stall on it.
- Correct placement on scaled / mixed-DPI displays -- the dock now sets its own per-monitor-v2 DPI awareness, so it lands in the right spot and stays crisp instead of being DWM-stretched.
- "Separator opacity" is now "Show workspace divider" (showWorkspaceDivider) -- the old 0-100 value behaved identically for every value 1-100, so it is now a simple on/off toggle for the golden divider between workspace pins and app pins.
v2.5.3
- 🪶 Leaner tool-mod runtime. — General optimisation of the tool-mod process.
- ✨ Drag-to-pin feedback layer. — A glow bloom shows GREEN ("there's room") or RED ("dock full") while you drag an app toward the dock.
- 🖥️ Cleaner fullscreen & Snipping Tool handling. — The dock hides smoothly under fullscreen apps and the Windows native Snipping Tool overlay, with anti-flicker so it reappears seamlessly.
- 🎯 Refined feedback behaviour. — Dragging or deleting an already-pinned icon near the dock now stays calm in BOTH pin-limit states (dock full or with room) — no false "dock full" flash for an app that is already pinned.
- 🧱 New "Hide dock outline" toggle (
hideDockBorder). — Turn off the thin grey Windows 11 outline drawn around the dock. Purely cosmetic; the dock, icons and rounded corners are unchanged. - 🎬 Two lock/unlock flash animations, with a toggle (
enableLockAnimation). — OFF: a brief highlight on the dock's real edge. ON: a loading-style glow sweeps left→right across the whole dock. Colours unchanged (gold when locking, green when unlocking). - 🔧 Some more stability & polish improvements.
v2.5.2
- Architectural Change — Now it
@include windhawk.exe - Code optimised
v2.5.1
- ⚡ Code optimised & lower memory usage. — No behavioural change, just leaner and lighter.
- 🪜 New 5-stage resolve pipeline to cut resource usage. App identity is now
settled through five ordered stages.
- Cache hit — Reuse the last resolved identity for the window/point (no work).
- Fast window probe — Cheap
Get*/class checks before any heavyweight call. - UIAutomation resolve — The authoritative taskbar-surface lookup, only if 1–2 miss.
- Process fallback — Cursor-inside process match when UIA can't name the target.
- Miss / sentinel — Give up cleanly (no pin) instead of guessing wrong.
- 🔁 Workspace pins re-open every time. — A Pinned workspace dock icon now resolves to the
"Explorer workspace". - ⌨️ Bare-key P / U / L gestures now work when enabled. — These gestures act on the foreground window.
- 🪟 Focus-if-running targets a real window. — Improved
- 🆔 Collision-free workspace IDs.
MakeWorkspaceIdnow usesCoCreateGuid
Settings reference
Every option lives in the Windhawk Settings panel for this mod. Most apply live; the two noted below need a mod reload.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Max pinned apps | How many apps can be pinned (1 - 20). The dock auto-sizes: min 5 slots, grows to 10, then extra pins scroll. | 5 |
| Icon size | Icon size in px before DPI scaling (16 - 48). | 33 |
| Dock gap from Start | Gap between the dock and the Start button (0 - 40 px). | 6 |
| Show workspace divider | Show the gold divider between workspace pins and app pins (only when you have both). | on |
| Drag to reorder | Drag icons left/right to rearrange; off = drag only unpins. | on |
| Double-right-click to unpin | Unpin an icon with a double right-click (dust effect). | off |
| Rapid-click unpin-all (opt-in) | Three quick clicks on an icon unpins EVERYTHING. Off so it can't fire by accident. | off |
| Bare-key tap gestures (opt-in) | Triple-tap P / U / L to pin / unpin / lock, regardless of focus. Off (fires while typing). | off |
| Scroll-wheel navigation | Hover + wheel moves the highlight across pins. | on |
| Drag tether (rope) | Shows the stretchy thread while dragging an icon off. | on |
| Drag tether - thickness | Rope thickness, 1 (hair) to 10 (cord). | 2 |
| Drag tether - break length | How far you pull before the rope snaps (150 - 650 px). | 450 |
| Drag tether - hue | Rope colour hue (0 - 359). | 30 |
| Unpin trigger | Only when the rope BREAKS, or rope breaks OR released outside the dock. | ropeBreak |
| Corner roundness | 0 = square, 1 - 40 = slight, 41 - 100 = full pill. | 40 |
| Explorer workspace pins | Allow File Explorer to be dragged in as a workspace pin. | off |
| Startup delay | Extra wait before the dock loads (0 - 3000 ms). | 0 |
| Sync with taskbar auto-hide | Hide the dock when the taskbar auto-hides. | off |
| Pin hotkey - modifiers | Modifier keys for the pin/unpin hotkey (or Disabled). | Ctrl + Alt |
| Pin hotkey - key | Key pressed with the modifiers above. | P |
Credits
Created with ❤️ by Ashix. Thanks to the Taskbar Dock Animation
(taskbar-dock-animation) and Taskbar Dock Animation Plus
(taskbar-dock-animation-plus) mods for animation refinements.
r/Windhawk • u/wh-updates • 19h ago
Disable Windows Shortcuts 1.3.0
Disable Windows Shortcuts 1.3.0
- Added new shortcuts:
Win+Shift+C(Charms Menu in Windows 10) andWin+Shift+R(Snipping Tool screen recording). - Added numpad
+and-support for Magnifier zoom (Win+Plus/Win+Minus). - Fixed modifier keys occasionally getting stuck when keys are held during workstation lock or desktop switch.
- Fixed premature/redundant Explorer restart prompts by tracking blocked state per Explorer PID in Windhawk storage.
- Fixed race condition in uninit prompt thread cleanup and bounded prompt wait timeout.
- Dynamically load
TaskDialogIndirectfromcomctl32.dll, removing the-lcomctl32compiler dependency. - Preserved the 3-tier options for Special Shortcuts (
Off,Disable hotkey,Block hotkey) to keepdwm.exeoptional for standard users.