Portable HideWin

Portable HideWin is a lightweight application designed to clean up your taskbar and desktop by hiding the windows that are not in use. If you value desktop space, this tool is designed to help you manage the opened program windows.

As the name clearly states, this utility is portable and can be used from any location including a removable storage device. This enables you to easily hide the windows without having to go through a software installation.

Once started, the utility can be accessed from the tray icon in order to view a list of all the active widows and choose the one that you want to hide. Each window is automatically associated with a keyboard combination which makes it easier to hide a specific item.

When you open or close an application, the name of the window is automatically added or removed to the list. Although the apps launched before starting the tool are apparently in a random order, all the new ones are added to the list in chronological order which makes them easier to find.

The shortcuts use the Alt key in combination with a letter which limits the number of active windows. Even though the app creates associations such as Alt+[ or Alt+/, they were not usable during our tests. However, you can still use the tray context menu to hide these windows.

The shortcut limitation can be a problem not only for the users that have multiple windows but also for the ones that frequently close and open programs. Since the app assigns a different shortcut every time you open and close a program, it shortly runs out of valid keyboard combinations.

In our tests, Portable HideWin required insignificant resources and successfully concealed the windows for all tested apps.