Sometimes we find ourselves needs to hide some open files/programs instantly when someone came in suddenly while we are working on our PC, this is not difficult with the existence of free tools,in this article we will describe the best free tools I found online: window hidie ,Minime ,Clicky Gone and hide win.
Tutorial Key Facts
Supported Operating System Windows XP, Vista, Win 7 (all versions) , 8
Last Update 2014/09/15
Author Nihad Hassan
Window Hide Tool
Is portable utility that helps you to quickly hide a window of any application by using hotkeys or by clicking an icon in your tray. Moreover, you can specify groups of windows by their title text and set hotkeys for them. (For example, a group can comprise all windows that have ‘Internet Explorer’ in their title text.).
Features of Window Hide Tool
- hide window by click on tray icon
- password protection
- multiple groups of windows
- icon deletion automatically from tray while hiding windows
- show list of hidden windows
- hide all windows
- hotkey for each action
You can download this utility from http://www.window-hide.com/
After installing and lunching the application, the Window Hide icon will appear in the bottom near system clock
Figure 1:Window hide on system tray
Right click over this ICON to check its options
Figure 2:All major program functions (hide window, hide all windows, and etc.) is accessible from tray menu
Click on “Preferences” option to change hot keys and other configurations
Figure 3:Preferences menu
In this window, we can configure the hot keys for Hiding active window or hiding all opened windows in addition to show hidden window/s.
We can also configure the tool to run atomically when windows start up and set a password to protect its preferences.
Hidewin
Another portable utility used to hide active windows , I tried to access its creator website but I could not , it seems its author has stopped updating it , however , this tool is still an excellent tool for hiding active windows , being portable allows you to use from a USB and it works on all windows OS (XP ,2003 , Vista , Win 7)
Double click on the tool and a small green ICON will appear on system try as follow.
Figure 4:Hidewin icon in system tray
Right click on this ICON to see a list of options
Figure 5:Show open windows/programs and access to tool options
As we see , a list of all active windows will appear in addition to the option to Hide all active windows as a group and to hide the program ICON itself (by selecting “Hide Me” or pressing Alt+A on the Keyboard)
Minime
Minime is a tool that allows you to minimize applications to the system tray using a simple hotkey.
Main Features include:
- Minimize applications
- Applications are minimized to a single tray icon
- Easy to use context menu
- Easy to configure
you can download this tool from http://sourceforge.net/projects/minime-tool/, it is a portable application , just unzip the folder and double click on minime.exe as follow
Figure 6: Lunching minime.exe
program icon will appears on system tray as follow:
Figure 7:program appears on system tray after lunching it
click on the “Option” menu to select what buttons to use when showing or hiding open windows
Figure 8:Lunching Options to set your hide/show window hot keys
Clicky Gone
Clicky Gone allows you to hide your selected windows from view, this includes the taskbar button associated with the application. Main features of this tool includes:
- Click and Hide by holding down keyboard modifiers
- Run hidden windows application’s in the background, i.e Low priority
- Toggle all windows to hide and show
- Boss Key support, hide the active window and mute the sound
- A fancy menu that shows you all your hidden windows
- Prevent click hiding on full screen applications, i.e. Games
- Hide menu on applications caption and taskbar system menu
- Process priority menu on applications caption and taskbar system menu
- Hide windows in system tray or completely from view
- Prevent stuborn windows from showing up after they are hidden, i.e. a long task completes and the application shows another window from the one you have hidden
- Transparency Effect
there is a portable version of this application could be downloaded from here
Figure 9:Display Clicky Gone options
click the “Config” button to set the keys to hide/unhide open Windows and applications.
Figure 10:Select your hot keys to hide/unhide open windows & files
In this article we show you how to install and use three hiding programs that helps you to immediately hide your open programs/files under Windows Operating System.
