How to Make Your Taskbar Centered (or Not) in Windows 11
Items on the Windows 11 taskbar can be aligned in the middle or left. Below are directions for changing that setting, whether Windows is or isn’t activated.
Windows Is Activated
Changing the Windows 11 taskbar alignment when Windows is activated with a valid product key is simple.
Right-click an empty space on the taskbar and choose Taskbar settings. Expand the Taskbar behaviors section. Next to Taskbar alignment, select the menu and choose either Left or Center. The taskbar will adjust accordingly immediately.
Windows Isn’t Activated
Some personalization settings are inaccessible if Windows 11 isn’t activated. The workaround is to edit the registry.
Open Registry Editor by searching for it. Using these steps to edit the registry won’t cause any damage to your computer. However, it’s remarkably easy to delete or edit something that shouldn’t be changed. Be sure to back up the registry before starting. If you need to undo an edit later, you can always restore the registry from the backup. Navigate to this location using the folders on the left side: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\ Right-click the Advanced key and go to New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the value TaskbarAl (that’s a lowercase L, not an uppercase i), and press Enter. The taskbar will immediately align to the left since a 0 value is for left-alignment. To center the taskbar, double-click the value and change it to 1.
How Do I Resize the Taskbar in Windows 11?
Related to the taskbar’s alignment is its size. Changing the taskbar size is extremely easy to do in Windows 10, so you’d think it’d be an option in the taskbar settings in Windows 11. Instead, the only way to resize the taskbar in this version of Windows is through a Windows Registry tweak.
That said, there is a setting you can enable to auto-hide the taskbar, which essentially downsizes it automatically when your mouse isn’t focused on the taskbar. This can provide you with a little extra screen space. To do so, search Settings for Automatically hide the taskbar, and enable the setting.
