Declutter Windows Taskbar With Hedgehog’s Jumplist Launcher

The Windows taskbar (also called superbar) is excellent for managing multiple apps, but it can quickly get unmanageable if you like to pin all your apps to the taskbar instead of leaving them scattered on the desktop.

One way to cram more apps to the taskbar is by making the size of icons smaller. To do this, right click anywhere on the taskbar, choose Properties, and select the checkbox next to “Use small taskbar buttons”. While this lets you add more apps to the taskbar, it doesn’t help clearing up the mess.

Hedgehog’s Jumplist Launcher is a tiny app that lets you launch apps from an underrated feature of Windows 7 and above – the jumplist. A jumplist is that list of frequently used options (or recently opened files) you see when you right click an app pinned to the taskbar. By moving some apps to the jumplist, you can cut down on some serious clutter while still keeping many apps just two clicks away.

Once you download Jumplist Launcher (a portable ZIP package), right click JumplistLauncher.exe and pin it to the taskbar.

You can now launch it from the taskbar and start adding your apps. You can create different groups for your apps to organize them. This initial setup is a bit daunting; thankfully, it’s just a one-time process. We’d recommend you to add the apps that you don’t use frequently, as there is no way to launch them with keyboard shortcuts.

Once you’ve added all your apps to the list, click on Update Jumplist at the bottom right corner, and you’re good to go. You will be able to launch those apps by right clicking the Jumplist Launcher icon on the taskbar.

If you use a system cleaning app like CCleaner, it may wipe your jumplists clean while running. In case that happens to you, launch Jumplist Launcher and hit that Update Jumplist button again. This will re-populate the jumplist.

Do you have your own ways of managing desktop and taskbar clutter? Let us know in the comments below.

comments (add yours)

  1. I have just been trying this on Win 10 but can’t get it to display more than 13 items, I have tried the max list setting between 10 and 30 but the prog never alters, can anyone help?

    Reply
  2. I have used this splendid app for years on Win 7 but cannot make it work on Win 10.
    Can anyone tell me if they are using it on 10 and perhaps tell me of any pitfalls?

    Reply

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