How to minimize Outlook to System Tray in Windows 11/10

How to minimize Outlook to System Tray in Windows 11/10 as your default email client, you may have noticed that when you minimize it, it minimizes to the taskbar and continues to occupy space. This can be a problem if you have too many programs open in the taskbar. If you have Outlook open all the time, you may wish to minimize it to the system tray or notification area instead.

Minimize Outlook to System Tray in Windows

1] Minimize Outlook to System Tray using UI

To reduce Outlook to the system tray, right-click on the Outlook system tray icon.
Next, select “Hide When Minimized” from the menu offered.
When Outlook is minimized to the notification area, it will no longer appear on the taskbar.

If you want to open Outlook again, just double-click its system tray icon, and it will open.

2] Using Registry

If you wish to make the change by editing the Windows Registry, first create a system restore point. Then, open the Registry Editor by running regedit, and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Preference

In the right pane, create a new DWord value named MinToTray. Set the value to 1 to cause Windows Live Messenger to minimize to the tray instead of the taskbar.

0 : Will minimize Outlook to the Taskbar
1 : Will minimize Outlook to the System Tray

Outlook closes when minimized

If you think that Outlook closes when you click on the minimize button, then you should know that it doesn’t actually close, but is minimized to the Notification area. To change this behavior and make the Outlook windows minimize to the taskbar, simply uncheck the “Hide When Minimized” option as explained above.