Polterdesk

Toggle desktop icon and taskbar visibility on Windows with a double-click or hotkey.
A tiny Windows utility that stays out of your way.

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Inspired by Stardock Fences' double-click to hide/show desktop icons feature. Polterdesk is a lightweight, open-source, and most importantly, free alternative to that feature.

Features

• Double-click an empty area of your desktop to hide/show all icons
• Global hotkey (default Ctrl+Alt+H) works from any application
• Taskbar auto-hide toggles alongside icons (configurable)
• Click blocking prevents accidentally opening files when icons are hidden
• Tray icon with right-click menu for quick access

Requirements

• Windows 10 (1903+) or Windows 11
• Visual C++ Redistributable (if not already installed)

Usage

1. Download polterdesk.exe from the releases page
2. Run it - a tray icon appears in the notification area
3. Double-click the desktop to hide icons, double-click again to show them
4. Or press Ctrl+Alt+H from anywhere

Settings

Right-click the tray icon and select Open (or single-click) to access settings:

• Hotkey - click the field and press a new key combination to change it
• Start with Windows - launch automatically on login
• Also hide taskbar - toggle the taskbar alongside icons

Planned

• macOS support

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Rust stable (>= 1.85) with x86_64-pc-windows-msvc target
• Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 (MSVC v143)
• Windows SDK 10.0.22621.0+

Build

cargo build --release

The binary is at target\release\polterdesk.exe.

Run Tests

cargo test --lib          # unit tests
cargo test                # all tests (requires Windows desktop)

License

MIT