To keep my taskbar clutter free, I like to keep as much free space on my taskbar as possible. Some applications have the built-in ability to minimize to the system tray. I can minimize them to tray and easily browse the remaining windows in the taskbar. While the “minimize to tray” feature is quite useful, unfortunately most programs do not include it.
One way to force this feature on different applications is by using a great piece of freeware named RunInTray. But it has its limitations. I can only minimize on program at a time to tray, not multiple ones. I run Vista and the two programs I use most frequent are the Google Chrome browser and WMP (Windows Media Player 11). I had already been using RunInTray for WMP and was in need of a similar tool for Chrome. Thankfully I found this tool and now would like to share it with my readers.
The tool is called “Minimize Chrome to Tray.”
This is a browser extension for Chrome which lets users minimize Chrome to tray. Here is how the tray icon looks like (it is the one to the extreme left):
The extension does not only minimize Chrome, it also offers a number of useful functions which can be executed from the context menu by right-clicking the minimized icon. These options can be accessed either in the Extensions menu of Chrome or by right-clicking minimized icon. This is what the options for extension look like:
As you can see, a number of features are offered. We can choose how the extension behaves if we left-click, double-click, or right-click on the extension. We can also choose to include Favorites/Bookmarks in our context menu or the feature to open a new tab or window. Finally we can choose to set a hotkey which will let us minimize all Chrome windows with one press of the key combination.
This Chrome extension suited my desktop customization preferences; “Minimize Chrome to Tray” is definitely a tool I will be using for a long time.
