How to enable taskbar ungrouping and labels in Windows 11

Aug 19, 2023

Want to quickly identify your apps on the Windows 11 taskbar? Here's how to enable taskbar ungrouping if you're in the Insider program.

Windows 11 is a good operating system, but it isn't without its flaws. In fact, it's received quite a bit of criticism due to many features that were removed from previous Windows versions. One notable example has to do with the taskbar, which lost a few features, including the ability to show individual windows and labels, and it forced you to group windows of the same app. Thankfully, Microsoft is finally adding taskbar ungrouping to Windows 11, meaning you can see individual windows and their labels directly on the taskbar.

Right now, this capability is only available to Windows Insiders in the Dev channel, and it's still rolling out, so you may not see it right away. But if you want to enable this feature, you can do so. First, of course, you'll need to sign up for the Windows Insider program and join the Dev channel, but once you've done that, you can follow the steps below.

The process of enabling taskbar ungrouping in the Settings app is fairly straightforward assuming your PC has already received the feature. Here's what you need to do:

Changes are applied automatically, and you should see them in real time. You can always head back to change the behavior.

While Microsoft is starting to roll out support for taskbar ungrouping in the Windows 11 Dev channel, the company is still testing the feature with only a subset of Insiders, which means you may not see the options above even if you are enrolled. The feature is hidden for many users, but you can reveal it using an app called ViveTool, or an alternative called ViveTool GUI. The latter may be a bit more user-friendly, so that's what we're using. Here's what you need to do:

You should now be able to see the options we described in the section above. You may want to restart your computer first to make sure everything is working properly.

And that's all there is to it. The steps in the first section should apply to other Insider channels and to the stable releases of Windows 11 once this feature is more widely available. You also shouldn't need to use ViveTool GUI once the feature is fully rolled out.

If you'd like to learn more about the features Windows Insiders can try right now, check out our article on the Windows 11 features in preview, which we keep updated every week. And if you want to learn about other Windows 11 features that make life a little easier, check out how to set up live captions.

I've been covering the tech world since 2018, and I love computers, phones, and - above all that - Nintendo videogames, which I'm always happy to talk about.