Show or hide Chat icon on taskbar in Windows 11

To make meetings easier on Windows 11, Microsoft has started rolling out the Chat feature. As of this writing, some of the Windows Insiders on latest Preview Build 22000.100 have received this feature. Microsoft earlier stated that they will be rolling out this feature to subset of Insiders. It may be rolled out to more Insiders in near future. So if you’ve already started seeing the Chat feature, this guide is for you. In this post, we’ll see how you can show or hide Chat icon on taskbar in Windows 11.

So the Chat icon can be considered as an upgrade over Meet now in Windows 10. With Chat feature on Windows 11, you can instantaneously connect with your colleagues and family without any additional software. Just sign in once with this feature, and next time you just click that icon, select a person and you should be connected immediately.

Here’s how you can add or remove Chat icon on your Windows 11 taskbar.

Show or hide Chat icon on taskbar in Windows 11

Method 1 – Add/remove Chat using Settings in Windows 11

1. Press + I keys to open Settings app.

2. In the Settings app, go to Personalization > Taskbar.

3. Locate the Taskbar items heading in this section. Expand it, you will be able to see Chat option there. Simply turn Off the option to hide Chat icon on taskbar. If this option is set to On, the default setting, you’ll see Chat icon.

4. Close Settings app.

Method 2 – Add/remove Chat using registry in Windows 11

1. Run regedit command to open Registry Editor.

2. In the Registry Editor window, navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

3. In the right pane of Advanced registry key, locate the registry DWORD named TaskbarMn. If you set this DWORD to 0, Chat icon will be hidden while if you set it to 1, Chat icon will be shown on taskbar.

4. Close Registry Editor, restart Windows Explorer to apply changes.

Check this video, if you have any queries with above methods:

That’s it!

Read next: Show or hide Widgets button in Windows 11.