Are you lost with all the windows and apps open on your PC? Use this little-known Windows feature to see thumbnails of everything that’s running in one click and find what you need.
If you spend a lot of time on a PC, whether for work or leisure, you probably encounter this problem regularly. When you use several applications at the same time, your screen becomes cluttered with many windows and you have difficulty finding the one you need.
To display the application you are looking for, you may then click on all the icons on the taskbar, which often has the effect of adding clutter to the desktop. And if you are a little experienced on Windows, you certainly know the keyboard shortcut Alt+Tabwhich allows you to quickly switch between windows.
Very effective for switching between two or three windows, this shortcut nevertheless shows its limits as soon as their number increases. Windows, however, has an even more practical function for effortlessly navigating between all applications and open windows: the Tasks View. If you’ve never paid attention to it, it could change your life.
There Tasks View displays a mosaic of all open applications on your computer, even those whose window you have minimized. By clicking on the image of an application, you bring its window to the foreground, without closing the others. And you can also close apps directly from the tile, by clicking on the cross in the upper right corner of the windows, as you usually do. This function makes it easy to navigate between open applications and quickly clean up the desktop.
Furthermore, the Tasks View also allows you to create virtual desktops and switch from one to another. As their name suggests, virtual desktops are separate spaces, which allow you to neatly organize your activities by distributing your applications. For example, you can open your web browser and streaming apps on one desktop, and your work software like Word and Excel on another. And when you are in the mosaic, you can move any application from one space to another, by dragging its window to the desired desktop.
To use this very practical function, nothing more. There Tasks View is available on Windows 10 and 11, and is found by default in third position in the taskbarjust to the right of the magnifying glass button. If you hover over the button for a few moments Tasks View with the mouse, the list of virtual desktops appears, and if you click on it, the application mosaic is then displayed on the screen. And if you are comfortable with your keyboard, you can also use the shortcut Windows key+Tab to instantly open the Tasks view.
If by chance you can’t find this button on your taskbar, perhaps you or someone else has disabled it. To find it, do a right-click on an empty space on the taskbarthen click Taskbar settings and then click on the switch to the right of Tasks View to pass it to the state Enabled. The button Tasks View will then return to the third place from the left in your taskbar. And since it can’t be moved, you have no risk of missing it!