Microsoft is finally adding never combine app icons and labels to the Windows 11 taskbar. These highly requested features have been absent from Windows 11 after Microsoft overhauled and rebuilt the taskbar for the operating system and lost a lot of functionality as a result.
Now, Twitter user Albacore has spotted that Microsoft is getting close to publicly testing a never combine app icons option for the Windows 11 taskbar, alongside text labels to more easily identify apps. Both of these features are present in Windows 10, so it’s good to see them finally coming back.
Just ahead of Windows 11’s release in 2021, I wrote about how I hated the new taskbar, but Microsoft has been slowly improving it ever since. It was initially lacking even the most basic multiple monitor support for the time and date, and you couldn’t drag and drop files into different apps on the taskbar. Both of these have returned, and Microsoft has even brought back the Task Manager shortcut that was missing after Windows 11 user complaints.
We’re now still waiting to see if Microsoft will soon support small icons in the Windows 11 taskbar or the ability to resize the taskbar and move it around. The addition of never combine app icons and labels has been a highly requested feature, racking up more than 26,000 votes in Microsoft’s Windows feedback app. The ability to resize the Windows 11 Start menu also has thousands of votes.
You’ll also soon be able to enable seconds in the Windows 11 system tray clock or even hide the time and date from the taskbar altogether. While Microsoft hasn’t publicly announced labels and never combine app icons are returning to the Windows 11 taskbar, we’ll likely hear something soon. Microsoft is now previewing major changes to Windows with a new Canary channel, and the company has been testing experimental and early features over the past year that aren’t always publicly disclosed.
