Is there any way to make taskbar icons bigger in Windows 10?

Question

So after Windows 10 installation I've noticed that icons in taskbar became a significant bit smaller than they were in Windows 7/8 while taskbar height stayed the same, here's the comparison:

The reason for this is probably addition of the blue line below + some spacing for it, however for icons it results in almost 30 percent change in size which is a bit less than my comfort level at least currently. However the only option I've found is:

Which is of course making them even smaller. So I'm asking for any possible ways including registry hacks to make them bigger. I've tried some old hack which mentions MinSize registry value however it doesn't seem to affect the taskbar in Windows 10.

Solution 1

You can use 7+ Taskbar Tweaker.

1. Right click the title bar to go to Advanced Options
   
2. Under OptionsEx, set the w10_large_icons to 1

Solution 2

Install StartIsBack++, it has an option to use larger Icons.

Solution 3

To add clarity to the other answer relating to 7+ Taskbar Tweaker (http://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-v4-4), to access the advanced options you will need to right click on the icon in the system tray and select "Advanced Options". Near the bottom of the list is "w10_large_icons". Simply right-click on the 0 beside it and modify it to a 1, apply the change and the icons will be reverted to their proper size. Note that this feature is only available in the beta version of the program at the time of posting.

Solution 4

Try this:
1.Go Into Settings
2. Click Display
3. Locate the 'Change the size of text, apps and other items:' slider.
4. You can move that up to your liking. Make sure to sign out and sign back in again for the changes to affect everything.

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Comments

[Predelnik]

Yeah I know about it, however changing DPI is not really a good option -- some applications starts to look blurry after that, some will have poorly resized icons and so on, most importantly my display doesn't have that big pixel density to justify it. And also before update everything looked fine without adjusting DPI so if I would decide to change it, it would be really the last restort :)

[Question Asker]

@Predelnik I have been looking around trying to find something (anyone remember Windows XP Desktop Settings???) to no avail. I will let you know if I find anything. It is not a big deal to me as I like small icons :)

[Predelnik]

Yes that works, but sadly the program isn't free. The other thing I noticed is that in current version it seems like it forcefully overrides start menu which appears on Ctrl+Esc. (options are only for windows key and control-windows key).

[magicandre1981]

the purpose of the tool is to replace the Start of Win10 with the win7 start menu.

[Predelnik]

Yes I was able to figure that out, however I don't need this currently and lack of option to revert it for my favorite hotkey is not very nice)

[magicandre1981]

request the ability to configure shortcuts: msfn.org/board/topic/174021-startisback-10

[Predelnik]

It works. I think that it is better solution than StartIsBack++ for the following reasons: it's free, it doesn't change anything on installation that you don't want it to change. The only con I see for now is that you have to use beta version and have to figure out how to change advanced options which is not very straightforward.

[Ynhockey]

It works but apparently you need to be running this app constantly for the setting to take effect. Is there a way to make the change permanent?

[Ikus]

Also, the size of the Start (Windows) icon doesn't match the application icons anymore, it's too small. Is there a way to replace that icon with a larger version as well? 7TT (which I'm already using, but didn't know these advanced options) doesn't seem to offer that.

[cloneman]

This doesn't seem to work anymore in Win10 anniversary update :(

[BaltoStar]

opposite problem : by default icons are too large how to make them smaller ?

[cloneman]

This also increases the size of the Windows logo, a nice touch.