A minimalist desktop is basically a desktop that’s practical, but free of clutter like too many icons, too many menus, or any UI elements that a user doesn’t even need. Creating one isn’t hard, however, it will always be different relying on the needs of an individual user and what’s important or unimportant for them. Just read this article to know all about Minimalist Desktop on Windows 10 – User Guide.
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Minimalist desktop on Windows 10
without third party apps
If you’re looking to create a minimalist desktop on Windows, however, don’t want to install any apps to change how it looks. Then here are a few basic things you can do.
- Hide the desktop icons. Right-tap on an empty area of the desktop. Head to View and from the sub-menu, uncheck the ‘Show desktop icons option.
- Auto-hide the taskbar as well. Open the Settings app and head to the Personalization group of settings. Choose the Taskbar tab and set it to auto-hide in desktop mode.
- Delete all tiles from the Start menu. If you don’t like the Start menu and think its tiles offer a cluttered interface, then you can remove all of them and just have a simple apps’ list. You can also hide the app’s list and pin all of your favorite app tiles, files, and folders to the Start menu in a neat layout as well.
- Optional: You can provide the full-screen version of the Start menu a try and also see if it suits your minimalist needs better. It can be enabled from the Settings app too. Head the Personalization group of settings. Choose the Start tab, and turn on the ‘Use Start full screen’ button as well.
- Hide system tray icons in the overflow menu as well. The system tray will always display you the date and time. However, every other icon on it can be hidden in its overflow menu. This helps since the taskbar will appear whenever you position your mouse cursor over it so keeping the clutter hidden is a good idea actually.
What’s more
- On that note, it might also be a good idea to unpin unnecessary items from the taskbar.
- Just change the wallpaper to one that is simple. Flat images work best instead of high-definition pictures. You can go along with a simple wallpaper that favors dark colors or find something that has color in it, however, isn’t too busy.
- At last, you can disable color on the title bar, the Start Menu, and the taskbar. To do that, just open the Settings app and head to the Personalization group of settings. Now uncheck the ‘Start, Taskbar, and action center’ option, and the ‘Title bars and windows borders’ option too.
Minimalist desktop using third-party apps
If you’re willing to install some apps on your system. Your desktop could look exponentially better than if you were to just depend on the stock customization options that Windows 10 has. For a nice, minimalist desktop, we recommend using the following apps actually.
- TranslucentTB: this will basically make the taskbar translucent or also add a nice blur background to it. Download here.
- Rainmeter: Rainmeter actually has lots of Dock skins. You can also use them rather than the Start menu. Download here.
- TaskBar Hider: Completely hide the taskbar so that it won’t appear even whenever you move the mouse cursor over it. Download here.
- T-Clock: For customizing the System tray clock as well. Download here.
Creating the minimalist desktop
- First of all, hide the desktop icons. Right-tap an empty area on the desktop and go to View. Uncheck the ‘Show desktop icons option too. If you can’t live without desktop icons, then consider limiting them, make sure they are aligned to the grid. Just don’t make a habit of saving files to it.
- Change the desktop wallpaper to something that’s minimalist as well.
- Decide what you want to do along with the taskbar; we have given you tools to hide it completely or to make it transparent.
- Find a dock or launcher skin for Rainmeter actually. This will take a good deal of time because there are lots of Rainmeter skins out there. Find one that suits you, and that is really easy to customize. We used BlueRose actually. It is really easy to customize and presents everything in a neat, clean layout.
Conclusion
Well, That is all from my side. If you want to know more about this article or have any queries. Then feel free to ask me anything in the comments section below.
Have a Good Day!
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