Enable ‘Never combine taskbar buttons’ in Windows 11

In Windows 11 operating system, taskbar helps you to easily navigate among different applications. The taskbar contains Start, search, taskbar notification area and pinned application icons, widgets and show Desktop button. When you have multiple displays, then you will be able to set button grouping separately for the main taskbar and other taskbars. In this article, we’ll see how you can enable ‘Never combine taskbar buttons’ in Windows 11.

Here is how you can differentiate between Always combine, hide labels taskbar buttons and Never combine.

In older operating systems such as Windows 10 and prior, this was a dedicated setting. But you won’t find out this as a dedicated setting in Windows 11. In other words, we can say that the setting to enable never combine taskbar buttons is removed in Windows 11. However, you can try some registry based workarounds, and then you can enable the same feature in newer operating system.

Enable ‘Never combine taskbar buttons’ in Windows 11

As we already know that the setting to never combine taskbar buttons is missing in Windows 11. Then you have to use alternative registry manipulation as described below.

Disclaimer: It is highly recommended to create a System Restore point first, before trying below steps.

Follow these steps:

1. Open Task Manager.

2. Click Run new task.

3. Paste %SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe.

4. Select Create this task with administrative privileges.

5. Click OK.

Execute this script:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope LocalMachine -Force
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell\Update\Packages" -Name "UndockingDisabled" -PropertyType DWord -Value "00000001";
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell\Update\Packages" -Name "UndockingDisabled" -Value "00000001";
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" -Name "SearchboxTaskbarMode" -PropertyType DWord -Value "00000000";
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" -Name "SearchboxTaskbarMode" -Value "00000000";
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer"
-Name "NoTaskGrouping" -PropertyType DWord -Value "00000001";
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer"
-Name "NoTaskGrouping" -Value "00000001";
./taskkill /f /im explorer.exe;
./CMD /Q /C START /REALTIME explorer.exe;

Once you execute above commands, you will have File Explorer restarted.

After restarting the File Explorer, or the explorer process, you should be able to never combine taskbar buttons.

In case if you want to restore default configuration later or reverse the above changes, you can try this script:

Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell\Update\Packages" -Name "UndockingDisabled" -Value "00000000"
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" -Name "SearchboxTaskbarMode" -Value "00000001";
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" -Name "NoTaskGrouping" -Value "00000000";
./taskkill /f /im explorer.exe;
./CMD /Q /C START /REALTIME explorer.exe;

Video guide

Update (07/07/2023): Microsoft added options to never combine taskbar buttons. More details in this video guide:

Hope this helps!