Hide apps from your screen, the taskbar, and Alt+Tab with a global keyboard shortcut — then bring them back the same way. A lightweight Windows tray utility.
What it is: a convenience / screen-privacy tool. It hides windows instantly. What it is not: a security tool. Hidden windows are not protected or encrypted — anyone using the PC can restore them.
- Global shortcuts — assign a shortcut (e.g.
Ctrl+Alt+C) to any app; press it from anywhere to hide/show that app. Hidden windows vanish from the screen, the taskbar, and Alt+Tab, and come back focused. - Shared shortcuts — give two or more apps the same shortcut and one press hides/shows them all together.
- Hide HideIt itself — a tray command and a global shortcut (default
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H, configurable) hide HideIt's own tray icon, including from the "show hidden icons" overflow. HideIt keeps running; press the shortcut again to bring it back. - Restore all — a tray command and a panic hotkey (default
Ctrl+Alt+``, configurable in Settings) un-hide everything. Windows are always restored on exit. - Hide a specific window — a "Hide a window…" picker lets you hide individual
windows instead of a whole app (e.g. just one Chrome profile window). You can even
assign a temporary shortcut to specific windows so a keypress toggles exactly
those — no need to open HideIt. Show last hidden (default
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S) or Restore all bring them back. - Mute audio while hidden — optional (on by default): a hidden app's sound is muted and restored when you bring it back, so hidden media goes quiet.
- Run at Windows startup — optional, via the per-user registry Run key.
- Desktop / Start Menu shortcuts — create them on demand from the tray
("Create shortcut") or Settings (handy for the portable
.exe). - Runs in the tray — no taskbar clutter; settings live behind the tray icon. A first-run welcome panel walks you through the basics.
Grab HideIt.exe from the Releases page and run it. It is
self-contained — no .NET install required. It starts minimized to the system
tray (look for the HideIt icon near the clock).
The first time you run an unsigned download, Windows SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC." Click More info → Run anyway. See Trust & antivirus below.
Each release ships a SHA256SUMS.txt. Compare its hash against your downloaded
HideIt.exe to confirm the file wasn't tampered with in transit:
# PowerShell — should match the value in SHA256SUMS.txt
Get-FileHash .\HideIt.exe -Algorithm SHA256# Git Bash / Linux / macOS — run in the folder containing both files
sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txtIf the hashes don't match, do not run the file — re-download it from the Releases page.
Launching HideIt opens the Settings window. When it's already running, click its tray icon (or just launch it again) to reopen Settings. Started automatically at Windows login, it stays quietly in the tray.
- Click the tray icon (or right-click → Settings).
- Add app… → pick a running app or Browse for .exe.
- Click Set… to record a shortcut (needs at least one of Ctrl/Alt/Shift/Win).
- Press your shortcut to hide/show. Give two apps the same shortcut to toggle both.
- Optionally hide HideIt's own tray icon (tray → Hide HideIt icon, or the show/hide shortcut). Press the shortcut again to bring it back.
Config is saved to %AppData%\HideIt\config.json. Logs (if any) go to
%AppData%\HideIt\logs.
Requires the .NET 10 SDK (dotnet --version reports 10.x). No Visual Studio
needed.
dotnet restore
dotnet build # verify it compiles
dotnet run # launch for testing
# single-file, self-contained release exe (with the app icon)
dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true \
-p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true
# output: bin/Release/net10.0-windows/win-x64/publish/HideIt.exeReplace Assets/app.ico with your own icon to rebrand; it drives both the exe and
tray icon.
Install Inno Setup 6+, publish (above), then:
iscc installer\HideIt.iss
# output: installer/output/HideIt-Setup-1.0.0.exeThe installer is per-user (no admin), adds Start-Menu/optional desktop shortcuts, an optional "start with Windows" task, and removes the startup entry on uninstall.
A GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) builds the single-file
exe and attaches it to a Release whenever you push a v* tag (e.g. git tag v1.0.0 && git push --tags).
One-time setup: after creating the repo, set
RepoOwnerinAppInfo.cs(andMyAppUrlininstaller/HideIt.iss) to your GitHub username so the in-app "Check for updates" link points to your releases page.
- Fullscreen-exclusive games may not hide cleanly (black screen, audio keeps playing, or the game forces itself back). Fix: run the game in borderless windowed mode. This is an OS limitation, not a bug.
- Elevated (admin) apps can't be hidden unless HideIt also runs as admin.
HideIt ships as
asInvoker(normal privileges) in v1. - Crash recovery — if HideIt crashes while windows are hidden, those windows stay hidden (the handles are lost). While running, use Restore all hidden or the panic hotkey. HideIt always restores everything on a clean exit.
- Multi-window apps (e.g. several Chrome windows) — all matching windows hide and show together.
- Hotkey conflicts — if a shortcut is already owned by another app globally, registration fails and HideIt shows a non-blocking warning in Settings.
HideIt collects no data and makes no network calls. Configuration and
optional crash logs are stored locally under %AppData%\HideIt.
HideIt enumerates processes, registers global hotkeys, and hides other apps' windows from the taskbar/Alt+Tab. That behavior overlaps with what some malware does, so SmartScreen warnings and occasional antivirus false positives are expected for an unsigned build. The source is open so the behavior is auditable. Releases are scanned on VirusTotal before publishing.
MIT — provided "as is", without warranty of any kind.