How to Make the Windows 10 Taskbar Completely Transparent

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Many users enjoy modifying their Windows 10 experience by changing user interface characteristics beyond what Microsoft intended. One popular mod is to make the Windows 10 taskbar completely transparent without any blur effects.

Out of the box, Windows 10 offers a Transparency setting that can be enabled under Settings > Personalization > Colors and then toggling on the 'Transparency effects' setting.


Windows 10 Color Settings

When enabled, though, you are left with an opaque experience where the color and text are shown through the taskbar, but it is not completely transparent as shown below.


Standard Windows 10 Transparency effects

Using the Windows Registry you can tweak it further so it becomes a bit more transparent by adding a DWORD (32-bit) value named UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency under the  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced Registry key and settings its value to 1.



This can be done via the Registry Editor using the following steps below:

1. As you cannot launch programs via Windows Search, we need to launch the Registry Editor via the Run: dialog. To do that, press the Windows key + the R key at the same time to open the Run: dialog and then type Regedit and press the OK button.

2. Windows will display a UAC prompt asking if you wish to allow the Registry Editor to make changes to the system. Press the Yes button to continue.

3. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced key.

4. Right-click on Search and select New and then DWORD (32-bit) Value as shown below.

5. You will be prompted to enter the name of the new value. Type UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency and press Enter on the keyboard. Double-click on UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency and set the value to 1 and then press the OK button.

6. When done, you should have an UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency value set to 1 as shown in the image below.


UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency Value Created

7. You can now close the Registry Editor and restart Windows Explorer or restart your computer.

Now go back into Settings > Personalization > Colors and toggle the Transparency effects setting from On to Off and then back to On again for the Registry change to go into effect.

You will now find that the taskbar has become a bit more transparent, but there is still a noticeable overlay effect.


More transparency through a Registry tweak

Going completely transparent

If you want to make your Windows 10 taskbar completely transparent, you will need to use a third-party program such as Classic Shell or TranslucentTB.

For this guide, we chose TranslucentTB as it is a small app whose only purpose is to make the taskbar completely transparent.

To get started, simply install the TranslucentTB app from the Microsoft Store and launch it.  Once launched, it will automatically make your taskbar completely transparent.


Fully transparent taskbar using TranslucentTB

When you couple this with a high-resolution desktop background, you can achieve a beautiful effect where your taskbar icons appear to float on top of the background.


TranslucentTB with Desktop Background - click to enlarge

Using TranslucentTB you can also configure it to automatically change the transparency effects of the taskbar as you perform different actions such as opening the Start Menu or use the search field.

For those looking to modify their Windows 10 desktop experience but are not ready for a complete overhaul, TranslucentTB is a great place to start.

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