Zalexdev
New member
- Local time
- 7:37 PM
- Posts
- 1
- OS
- Windows 11
Hi all, first post here, been lurking for a while
I have 3 monitors and the Show Desktop button has been driving me nuts for years. I click the corner on my right screen because I need something from the desktop there, and boom, everything on every screen is gone, including the video and whatever I was actually looking at on the other two. 99% of the time that’s not what I want
Couldn’t find anything that fixes the actual button (DisplayFusion can kinda do it with a hotkey but I didn’t want a whole suite just for this), so I ended up writing a little tray app for myself. It’s called SmartCollapse:
It doesn’t inject anything into Explorer or patch any files, it’s just a normal app with a mouse hook that only reacts to clicks on the Show Desktop button. Close it and everything is back to stock. ~250 KB, no installer
Tested on Win11 25H2 with the stock taskbar and with StartAllBack (3 monitors, different scaling, one taskbar horizontal and two vertical). Should work with ExplorerPatcher too but I haven’t tried it myself, so if someone uses EP let me know
Btw Win+D still minimizes everything like before, only the button changes. There’s a --toggle command line option though, so you can bind it to a hotkey if you want
Honest note: I built it with AI assistance. I designed it, reviewed the code and use it every day on my own setup. It’s open source (Apache-2.0) so feel free to look through it
GitHub: GitHub - zalexdev/SmartCollapse: Makes the taskbar's Show desktop button work per monitor. Click it and only the windows on that monitor are minimized; click it again and exactly those windows come back. Your other monitors are left alone.
Feedback and bug reports welcome, first time putting something like this out there
I have 3 monitors and the Show Desktop button has been driving me nuts for years. I click the corner on my right screen because I need something from the desktop there, and boom, everything on every screen is gone, including the video and whatever I was actually looking at on the other two. 99% of the time that’s not what I want
Couldn’t find anything that fixes the actual button (DisplayFusion can kinda do it with a hotkey but I didn’t want a whole suite just for this), so I ended up writing a little tray app for myself. It’s called SmartCollapse:
- click Show Desktop → only the windows on that monitor get minimized
- click again → exactly those windows come back, same order, maximized ones stay maximized
- hover the button → peek at the desktop on that monitor only
- Shift+click if you want the normal all-monitors behavior
It doesn’t inject anything into Explorer or patch any files, it’s just a normal app with a mouse hook that only reacts to clicks on the Show Desktop button. Close it and everything is back to stock. ~250 KB, no installer
Tested on Win11 25H2 with the stock taskbar and with StartAllBack (3 monitors, different scaling, one taskbar horizontal and two vertical). Should work with ExplorerPatcher too but I haven’t tried it myself, so if someone uses EP let me know
Btw Win+D still minimizes everything like before, only the button changes. There’s a --toggle command line option though, so you can bind it to a hotkey if you want
Honest note: I built it with AI assistance. I designed it, reviewed the code and use it every day on my own setup. It’s open source (Apache-2.0) so feel free to look through it
GitHub: GitHub - zalexdev/SmartCollapse: Makes the taskbar's Show desktop button work per monitor. Click it and only the windows on that monitor are minimized; click it again and exactly those windows come back. Your other monitors are left alone.
Feedback and bug reports welcome, first time putting something like this out there
- Windows Build/Version
- Win 11 25H2
My Computer
At a glance
Windows 11
- OS
- Windows 11
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
