How-To Geek
Minimize Apps to the System Tray with Trayconizer
Have a wonderful app that you use often every day but it does not have a “Minimize to System Tray” option? Now you can get that app minimized to the System Tray with Trayconizer.
Installation & Setup
There is no install or setup required for Trayconizer. Simply place the exe file in a folder of your choice that best suits your needs (it is recommended to place the folder in Program Files). For our example, we set Trayconizer up in its own folder in Program Files.
Before Trayconizer
For our example, we chose to use Paint.NET. Here you can see Paint.NET displaying regularly…
And Paint.NET minimized to the Task Bar…
Get Your App Setup to Use Trayconizer
Time to get that app to minimize to the System Tray! Locate the shortcut(s) for your app and right click on them. Select “Properties”.
Once you have clicked through, you will see the “Properties” window with the “Shortcut” tab displayed.
In the address area for “Target:” you will need to insert the target path for Trayconizer in front of the target path for your app making certain to leave a single space in between the final quote mark of the Trayconizer target path and the beginning quote mark of your app’s target path.
Here is an example of what it should look like based on our Paint.NET example…
Once you have that finished, click “Apply”, then “OK”.
Trayconizer in Action
Time to try things out! Once you get ready to minimize your app, use the same procedure that you would use to minimize it to the Task Bar (i.e. button or right click).
And see your app sitting in the System Tray! Terrific! Now you have more space in your Task Bar for other things.
To maximize your app, just double click on the icon. Have fun!
Links
Got Feedback? Join the discussion at discuss.howtogeek.com
Comments (10)
Akemi Iwaya (Asian Angel) is our very own Firefox Fangirl who enjoys working with multiple browsers and loves 'old school' role-playing games. Visit her on Twitter and Google+.
- Published 07/20/09
Thank you Angel nice program :-)
standard win 7 function !
whoops sorry it aint. but looks good
Has anyone encountered a Vista or 7 program that will allow you to minimize a program to the notification area “on demand?” Back in the heady days of XP, TaskSwitchXP used to allow me to right-click on the minimize button of a window and put it there. I’ve tried TrayDevil but it didn’t seem to work for me very well; it would cease to function after I hibernated until I restarted the program. Has anyone found another option?
Interesting. I’ve been using PowerMenu which is a portable program that adds a “minimize to tray” option (as well as Always On Top, Transparency, and Priority) option to all windows’ control menus, but Trayconizer might be more convenient for its purpose since I could use the minimize button instead. With PowerMenu I don’t minimize to the tray all the time, just sometimes…though I guess I wouldn’t want to do it all the time anyway…
Sorry, I got into a bit of rambling there.
Nice article
Seems like a good app.
I’ve been using Tray It! for a good while now, it’s much easier to use
At least with TaskSwitchXP on WinXP/2k3, you can simply enable ‘right-click on minimize button’ to hide to tray, _without_ editing the shortcut. You can also simply un-minimize from notification tray with a single click on the icon (works great then you’re working on 5+ Firefox windows, all with tens of tabs!)
Of course, I don’t know how well TaskSwitchXP works on Vista+, since it was last worked on in August ’06.
There’s also another one like this that I use: PowerMenu (http://www.abstractpath.com/powermenu/)
No install required (choose installer-less version in the download section), just make the exe run at startup and you’re good :)
Thanks! i have been looking for something like this with no installation!!!
thanks you very very much for this great program :)
this is very helpfully for Windows 7
works great with windows live messenger 2011