As you install applications on your computer the clutter slowly starts to build up. One of those visible clutter is at the System Tray area. System Tray is the area next to the System Time which has icons of some of the applications that are running on your computer. It provides a quick access to otherwise running-behind-the-scene applications.

System Tray is really a useful place to access some of the applications that running in the background. But the clutter of icons on System Tray will, at some point, make it harder to handle the System Tray. If you know of the applications that you really want to be on the System Tray then you can follow these steps to hide some of the application icons on System Tray that you really don’t need.

Step-1:

Right click on the Start button and click on “Properties”.

Step-2:

On the “Taskbar and Start Menu Properties” dialog, on the “Task Bar” tab click on the “Customize” button at the bottom of the dialog box.

In Windows Vista, you’d have to click on the “Customize” button under the “Notification Area” tab.

Step-3:

On the “Customize Notifications” dialog box, on the “Current Items” section select the application icon that you wanted to hide. On the “Behavior” side of the pane you’ll see a dropdown list which has 3 values “Hide when inactive”, “Always Hide” and “Always Show”. Select the “Always Hide” option. Do the same for as many application icons that you want to hide.

Step-4:

Click the “OK” buttons to dismiss all dialog boxes.

Alternatively you can right click on the System Tray itself and can click on the “Customize Notifications…” menu option. It is a bit delicate of a click that you’d have to do and so if you are not comfortable with it then follow the alternate route from Step-1.

Now, those icons that you’ve made “Always Hide” won’t show up on your System Tray anymore.

If you’d prefer to watch The Geek hide the icons on his computer’s System Tray then watch this screencast below.