How to Move Taskbar in Windows 11 (Change Taskbar Location)

Windows 11 Taskbar Icon

You can move Taskbar in Windows 11 and change its location. While Windows 11 doesn't yet include such a setting, this can be done with a Registry tweak.

Windows 11 is the newest operating system from Microsoft. It brought a drastically changed, completely new user interface. It includes a new Start menu which appears in the screen center. The change has also affected the taskbar, which is also centered.

Perhaps the worst change made to taskbar is its location. Windows 11 doesn't allow you to move it to the side or top, it always appears at the bottom of the screen.

This post will show you how to move the taskbar and change its location in Windows 11. You can either place it at the top or bottom.

Move Taskbar in Windows 11 and Change its Location

  1. Press Win + R and type regedit in the Run dialog to open the Registry editor.
  2. Navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects3​.
  3. Right-click the StuckRects3 key and select Export... from the menu. Save the REG file to the Desktop folder.
  4. Double-click the Settings value.
  5. In the 0008 row, place your cursor to the fifth column, where you see the 03 value.
  6. Press DEL to remove 03, and type 01.
  7. Click on OK in the Edit binary value dialog.
  8. Restart the Explorer shell using the Task Manager method.

You're done! The taskbar now appears at the top.

How to undo the change and move the taskbar back to bottom

To undo the change, double-click the exported REG file which you have created in the step #3. When prompted, click on the UAC confirmation prompt.

Alternatively, you can modify the above mentioned Settings binary value, and change its fifth column from 01 to 03, i.e. to its default value. Don't forget to restart the Explorer shell.

Note that restarting the Explorer shell is a mandatory step. You cannot simply sign out and sign in back to your user session. That's won't work!

To properly change the Windows 11 taskbar location, please restart Explorer as follows.

  1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager.
  2. In Task Manager, click on More details to make it show tabs with apps and services.
  3. On the Processes tab, find Windows Explorer and click it.
  4. Click on the Restart button.

You are done.

I will update this post once I figure out how to move the taskbar to the screen side. Currently, it is unknown.

That's it.

Support us

Winaero greatly relies on your support. You can help the site keep bringing you interesting and useful content and software by using these options:

If you like this article, please share it using the buttons below. It won't take a lot from you, but it will help us grow. Thanks for your support!

Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

37 thoughts on “How to Move Taskbar in Windows 11 (Change Taskbar Location)”

  1. Good luck figuring out how to move the taskbar to the sides of the display, I have bookmarked this page and look forward to it! Thanks for your hard work!

    1. You set it to 00 to move it to the left edge of your screen. (Count from left clockwise 0, 1, 2, 3 for left, top, right, bottom.) The sad part is that it becomes unusable. None of what should go into the taskbar shows, and the tray is all messed up. It appears the reason the vertical positions are not exposed in the UI is that they are indeed not fully implemented yet.

  2. Is there also a possibility to move the taskbar to a different display without changing the main display? Also maybe a possibility to disable button grouping?

  3. Works great! Moving to the sides is changing the values to either 0 (left) or 2 (right)
    It however doesn”t work as it should and keeps crashing the explorer.

  4. Works great, only problem is the Start Menu open on the left hand side rather than under the Menu icons – any idea how to “fix” that?

  5. Thank you! I tried other value such as 00 to 04. Looks like all the icons would not stay stable on the left or right. They are crashing the explorer.

    1. it is absurd that microsoft does not allow it, personally I have always used the bar on the left because it makes more sense with a widescreen

    1. right click the taskbar and select the only item, taskbar settings.
      change some settings, e.g. move icons from center to left.
      then change everything back.
      this will create the key

      1. there is a MMStuckRects3 located up a bit from StuckRects3 registry, this guy says resets taskbar on multiple monitors httрs://www.tесhnоhоliсplus.соm/windоws/windоws-11-tаskbаr-sеttings/

        however I tried it but did not work on other monitors yet anyway.

  6. Don’t use it. If you open up 2 instances of the same app, for eg 2 windows of file explorer or browser, you will not be able to maximize it without “alt-tabbing”. It works with the old taskbar though but the old taskbar causes other problems.

  7. Placing the taskbar on top, the preview thumbnail does not appear when hovering the mouse pointer over the application icons and if there are 2 or more instances of the same application open, it does not restore the windows from the bar if they are minimized.

    Does this happen to someone else?

  8. Thanks, Sergey.

    It is not ideal, but I have seen that deactivating the taskbar thumbnails with “winaero tweaker” (Desktop and taskbar / Taskbar Thumbnails / Disable Thumbnails Completely ) a list appears when clicking on the icon of a task that has two or more open instances, and you can select which instance to restore.

  9. if you have a grid of monitors set up (one on top of the other) and the taskbar on the top of each monitor set to autohide, it ends up covering the bottom of the monitor above it when it hides. It just repositions itself above that monitor’s viewport i guess, which can end up moving onto the monitor above it. Not sure how to best describe that.

  10. Since Windows 11 Insider Preview 22533.1001 (rs_prerelease) it is no longer possible to move the Taskbar at all. The registry value gets instantly rewritten to 03 or wont be changed at all. It also reverts the change when set to 01 before the update. Till today there is also no native functionality to move the Taskbar at all.

      1. Hey, tried the setting from the article – but no go (22000.469). WinearoTweaker changes more settings there – 5 instead of one mentioned in article. Any updates to article planned for this?

        And what about 22533.1001 – even WinaeroTweaket won’t work (with 5 changes)? :(

        Taskbar on top with new huge monitors is a must have, how can’t they understand it?? Rhetoric question…

  11. Hello,

    Thanks to provide a solution to switch the taskbar to the top. Meanwhile, the icons still open on top of the taskbar so I cannot switch from app to app when several windows are open. Any solution ? I do not intend to use the classic taskbar as the start menu process is too heavy to implement!

    Cecile

  12. Sadly, this does not work anymore. The registry values just go back to the default 03.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Exit mobile version
Using Telegram? Subscribe to the blog channel!
Hello. Add your message here.