When you have multiple windows open in Windows 11 and you hover your mouse cursor over an application’s icon on the taskbar, a large thumbnail preview instantly pops up. This allows you to quickly see the contents of a window before clicking it.
However, these thumbnail previews can be highly intrusive. If you are sharing your screen during a Zoom meeting or working in a crowded office, accidentally hovering over your email client or a private chat application will instantly broadcast its contents in a large thumbnail. If you value your privacy and prefer to only see a simple text list of your open windows, you can disable the visual thumbnails using the Registry Editor.
How to Turn Off Taskbar Thumbnail Previews
You must create a specific registry key that forces the hover delay to be so long that the thumbnail practically never appears.
- Click the Start button, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
- Navigate to the following path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced - Click on the Advanced folder so it is highlighted.
- Right-click in the empty space in the right-hand pane, and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
- Name this new value exactly: ExtendedUIHoverTime
- Double-click your new
ExtendedUIHoverTimevalue. - Under the “Base” section, select the Decimal radio button.
- In the “Value data” box, type 30000 (which equals 30 seconds), then click OK.
- Close the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
After rebooting, the thumbnail previews will technically still exist, but they are now programmed to wait 30 seconds before appearing. Because you will never accidentally hover your mouse perfectly still over an icon for half a minute, you will never see a pop-up thumbnail interrupting your workflow or exposing private information again.