Windows 10 is full of features that regular users come across pretty much every day but seldom use. One such feature is the ability to lock the Taskbar.

The feature has been around ever since introducing the taskbar in Windows 95 and continues to be preset to date. What what does locking the taskbar mean? Read on to find out.

What is the taskbar?

Well, we’re pretty sure you need no introduction to what is the taskbar in Windows. Still, the small bar you see with app icons, time, notifications badge and other important utilities that you generally see at the bottom of your Windows desktop is called the taskbar.

There are numerous ways you can customise your taskbar, including resizing its height, changing its position, changing the pinned items on it, so on and so forth. This is where the lock taskbar feature comes in handy.

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What does locking the taskbar mean?

When you lock the taskbar, you can’t make any changes to the height and taskbar position. It remains locked into place. Any pinned items on the taskbar can be changed/unpinned.

Locking the taskbar is handy to ensure it remains exactly how you’ve set the thing up to be. If you’ve got multiple monitors, you’ll see an option to lock all taskbars instead.

Note that if you have a lot of icons on your taskbar, more than what will fit in a single file anyway, you’ll get a scrollbar in your taskbar so that you can still access your icons without changing the height of the taskbar.

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How to lock the taskbar?

There are two ways you can lock the taskbar.

By right-clicking the taskbar.
Using Windows Settings.

By right-clicking the taskbar

This is the easiest way to lock/unlock the taskbar. Just right-click on an empty area in the taskbar and click Lock the taskbar. If you notice a tick mark before the option, it means your taskbar is already locked.

What does Lock the Taskbar mean on Windows 10?

Using Windows Settings

Follow these steps to lock or unlock the taskbar using Windows settings

Step 1: Press Windows key + I to open Windows Settings and click on Personalisation.

Step 2: Head over to the Taskbar section and toggle the Lock the taskbar setting on.

Note that you can’t lock the taskbar when in tablet mode. If you’re unable to lock your taskbar, check to see if you’re in tablet mode, disable it and try again.

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Taskbar customisations

There are two basic customisations you can make to your taskbar.

Change the taskbar height.
Change taskbar position.

Changing taskbar height

Before trying to change the taskbar’s height, make sure you’ve unlocked the taskbar.

Once the taskbar is unlocked, place your mouse cursor at the edge of the taskbar, and it’ll turn into a double arrow. Drag your mouse up and down from there to change the taskbar’s height.

Changing taskbar position

Trying to change the taskbar position is pretty easy. Unlock the taskbar, and drag it to wherever you want it to be. You can have the taskbar on either the top, bottom, left or right of your monitor.