How to remove the search bar, and Cortana, from Windows 10 taskbar

In the early days of Windows, users needed to open a web browser to begin searching for information on the internet. In 2014, Microsoft introduced Cortana. The voice assistant appeared on Windows 10 computers with a new search bar located in the interface’s taskbar.

For some, it was a welcome relief that made it simpler to search for anything you could ever need. For others, it took up too much space and was really pointless.

Bearing in mind that the feature was originally rolled out on Windows 8.1 back when Windows was trying to become a key player in smartphones, you may or may not find this feature useful. If you’d like to remove Cortana from your Windows 10 taskbar, we’ll show you how in this article.

Removing the search box from Windows 10 can be done in a few clicks.

How to remove search bar from Windows 10 Taskbar

There are a lot of customization options with the Windows taskbar. Let’s get right into removing Cortana, then we’ll cover some more features to clean up and personalize your taskbar.

Right-click on a blank area of the Taskbar.

By default, the taskbar is located at the bottom of your screen.

Select ‘Search’.

Click ‘Hidden’.

If you want to keep the option of a quick search on the Taskbar you can select the option Show Cortana button.

Once Cortana and the search bar are gone, you may be wondering how to complete your quick search. Simply hit the Windows key on your keyboard or hit the Start menu. Of course, you can always choose the ‘Show search icon’ option to keep your taskbar tidy while minimizing the clutter.

Other Customizations

Now that Cortana is gone (or minimized) let’s review some options to clean up your taskbar and make it more user-friendly.

Pinning

One of the more useful tools is the ability to pin and un-pin apps from your taskbar. You can fill your taskbar with all of the apps you need to use every day while simultaneously removing the ones you don’t want.

Start out by removing anything you don’t want on your taskbar by right-clicking on the app. Select ‘Unpin from Taskbar.’ Now the unwanted app will disappear from your taskbar. If you like the look of a clean taskbar, you can remove everything except the Start Menu where you can still access your apps.

Pinning an app to the taskbar is super simple too. Just open the application and right-click it. Click ‘Pin to Taskbar’ from the pop-up menu. Now, you can click and drag it where you want it.

You can even put all of your apps into a folder, then pin that folder to the taskbar. The process is simple. Start out by dragging your icons into a folder, then follow these steps:

Right-click any blank space on your desktop and select ‘New.’ Then, select ‘Shortcut.’ Browse and select the folder you’d like to pin.

Before you click next, type ‘explorer’ in front of the file name without the quotations.

Now, your new shortcut will appear on your desktop, simply drag it to the taskbar and let it pin itself there.

Personalize Your Task Bar

There are a lot of personalization options for your taskbar. Using the Win+I keyboard shortcut will open the taskbar settings on Windows 10.

You can increase the size of your taskbar by toggling off the lock option and using your cursor to drag the bar up. This is great if you have a lot of programs running at once, all will be displayed rather than having to scroll through pages.

You can also move your taskbar location to the left, right, or top of your screen. This is beneficial when your taskbar is getting in the way of your programs but you don’t want to hide it.

You can also customize your icons with or without labels. By default, Windows 10 only shows the icons of the apps that you have open. If you’d prefer, you can also turn on the labels.

Whether you want to minimize the clutter on your taskbar, add contacts, or limit notifications, you can do that from the taskbar settings on your computer.

Enjoy.