Appearance modes: normal, opaque, clear, blur and acrylic

Illustrations rendered in your browser with the same rules our tools use. They approximate Windows' drawing; colors and blur strength are to scale.

The five accents at a glance

The names match the tray menu (Normal, Opaque, Clear, Blur, Acrylic) and the lowercase values in settings.json. Each of the seven states picks one.

Translucent vs transparent

In everyday English, transparent means you can see clearly through something, like clean glass, and translucent means light passes through but the view is diffused, like frosted glass. Applied to the taskbar:

• Transparent is the clear accent with a low alpha: the wallpaper shows through sharply. At #00000000 the taskbar background is gone completely.
• Translucent is blur or acrylic: colors come through, details do not.

TranslucentTB does both, despite the name. Its default desktop look is transparent (clear), and the other accents give you the translucent versions.

Normal: Windows' own taskbar

normal means "do nothing". TranslucentTB asks Windows to restore the taskbar's default look, as if the app were not running. On Windows 11 22H2 and later its helper inside Explorer puts back the original background brush (ReturnTaskbarToDefaultAppearance in the source); on Windows 10 it asks the taskbar to redraw its usual accent. The color is ignored.

normal: TranslucentTB hands the taskbar back to Windows.

How these were captured

Captured October 29, 2026 on Windows build 26100 in our hands-on test; only cropped and resized. Settings used:

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "normal", "color": "#00000000" } }

It is the default for Start, Search and Task View, so the taskbar looks familiar while those panels are open. Use it for any state where you want Windows' look back, for example a maximized window.

Opaque: a solid color

opaque paints the taskbar in your color with no transparency. The alpha part of the color is thrown away: on Windows 11's taskbar TranslucentTB sets it to FF before applying it, and on Windows 10 the accent mode it uses ignores alpha. So #00000000 with opaque is solid black, not invisible. That is exactly what the default battery saver state does.

opaque with #1D4ED820: the alpha (20) is ignored and the bar is solid.

How these were captured

Captured October 29, 2026 on Windows build 26100 in our hands-on test; only cropped and resized. Settings used:

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "opaque", "color": "#1D4ED820" } }

Clear: your color, see-through

clear fills the taskbar with your color at your alpha and adds no blur. With alpha 00 the taskbar disappears and the icons float on the wallpaper. Raise the alpha to tint it: #00000066 is a 40% black, which keeps white icons readable on bright wallpapers.

clear with #00000000: the taskbar background is gone.

clear with #1D4ED880: blue at 50% alpha, no blur.

How these were captured

Captured October 29, 2026 on Windows build 26100 in our hands-on test; only cropped and resized. Settings used:

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "clear", "color": "#00000000" } }

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "clear", "color": "#1D4ED880" } }

Blur: a soft Gaussian blur

blur blurs what is behind the taskbar and lays your color on top as a tint. How it is drawn depends on the taskbar:

• Windows 11 22H2 and later (the XAML taskbar). TranslucentTB's helper replaces the taskbar's background with its own blur brush, a Direct2D Gaussian blur plus a flood of your color. The blur amount is blur_radius ÷ 3, so the default 9.0 gives a 3-pixel blur. Raise blur_radius for a stronger effect; values above 750 are clamped. This is the only place blur_radius does anything.
• Windows 10 and other classic taskbars. TranslucentTB sets Windows' built-in blur-behind accent on the taskbar window. Its strength is fixed by Windows, and blur_radius is ignored.

blur with blur_radius 0: no blur at all.

blur with the default blur_radius 9: a light blur.

blur with blur_radius 30: shapes become soft.

blur with blur_radius 750 (the maximum): colors average out.

How these were captured

Captured October 29, 2026 on Windows build 26100 in our hands-on test; only cropped and resized. Settings used:

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "blur", "color": "#00000010", "blur_radius": 0 } }

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "blur", "color": "#00000010", "blur_radius": 9 } }

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "blur", "color": "#00000010", "blur_radius": 30 } }

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "blur", "color": "#00000010", "blur_radius": 750 } }

Where blur is available

The Blur item is hidden in the tray menu when your taskbar can't do it. The rules, from TaskbarAttributeWorker:

When blur is not available, TranslucentTB rewrites every blur in your settings to acrylic in memory (ConfigManager::UpgradeBlur), and saves it that way the next time it writes the file.

Acrylic: frosted glass

acrylic is Microsoft's Fluent "acrylic" material: a strong blur, your color as a tint, and a fine noise texture. On Windows 11 22H2 and later TranslucentTB gives the taskbar a XAML AcrylicBrush that samples what is behind the taskbar, with your color as its tint. On Windows 10 it uses Windows' acrylic accent; that mode dislikes a completely transparent tint, so TranslucentTB quietly raises alpha 00 to 01 there.

The Maximized window state's default look is acrylic with #00000000: pure frosted glass with no tint. The state itself is off by default, so you only see it after you enable it (we confirmed this in the settings file TranslucentTB writes on first run).

acrylic on our test machine, which has no GPU (Hyper-V video): Windows does not draw acrylic there, so the bar showed as fully transparent.

How these were captured

Captured October 29, 2026 on Windows build 26100 in our hands-on test; only cropped and resized. Settings used:

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "acrylic", "color": "#00000000" } }

In our Windows test, acrylic showed as completely transparent. That machine has no graphics card, and Windows does not draw acrylic without one; the most likely reason it turns clear instead of a flat color is that TranslucentTB does not set the brush's fallback color. On a normal PC acrylic looks frosted. If it looks clear on yours, see acrylic looks transparent.

Clear vs acrylic

Pick clear for a minimal, invisible look and acrylic when you want the taskbar to stay readable over anything.

Color format: #RRGGBBAA, alpha last

TranslucentTB colors are hex strings with the alpha (opacity) at the end. Many Windows and .NET tools write ARGB with alpha first (#AARRGGBB), so a color copied from them comes out wrong. The parser (Util::Color::FromString) accepts four lengths:

The # is required in settings.json, upper- or lowercase hex both work, and anything else (5 or 7 digits, a missing #, color names) is an error that resets the whole file. The test cases we checked our tools against are the ones in TranslucentTB's own unit tests.

Color converter

Alpha values

The last two digits, for common opacities (rounded to the nearest of 256 steps):

• 0%00
• 10%1A
• 20%33
• 25%40
• 30%4D
• 40%66
• 50%80
• 60%99
• 70%B3
• 75%BF
• 80%CC
• 90%E6
• 100%FF

The Windows accent color setting

Windows has its own Show accent color on Start and taskbar switch under Settings › Personalization › Colors. TranslucentTB's tips page advises turning it off if taskbar elements show up with a different coloring than you picked. Leave it off and set the color in TranslucentTB instead.

The taskbar line (show_line, Windows 11)

Windows 11 draws a thin light line along the top edge of the taskbar. With a clear taskbar it is the only thing left of the bar, so most people hide it. In the tray menu it is Show taskbar border under each state; in settings.json it is show_line.

clear with show_line true: the thin border line along the top edge is visible.

How these were captured

Captured October 29, 2026 on Windows build 26100 in our hands-on test; only cropped and resized. Settings used:

{ "desktop_appearance": { "accent": "clear", "color": "#00000000", "show_line": true } }

Defaults: hidden on the desktop and with a visible window, shown when a window is maximized and while Start, Search or Task View is open. How it is hidden depends on the taskbar: on 22H2 and later the helper in Explorer turns the border off; on the earlier mixed taskbar TranslucentTB hides the separate WorkerW window that draws it, or clips the top pixel off the taskbar content.

The Aero Peek button (show_peek, Windows 10)

On Windows 10 the thin "show desktop" button sits at the far right of the taskbar, and on a clear taskbar it shows as a faint strip. show_peek (tray: Show Desktop Peek Button) hides it per state. TranslucentTB does not remove the button: it makes it almost fully transparent (alpha 1 of 255), so clicking the bottom-right corner still shows the desktop. The setting has no effect on the Windows 11 XAML taskbar.

Taskbar text and icon color

TranslucentTB changes only the taskbar background. The color of the clock, the search box text and the system icons comes from Windows' mode: Settings › Personalization › Colors › Choose your mode (or "Choose your default Windows mode" when it is set to Custom). Light mode gives dark text, Dark mode gives white text. These two strips are Windows' own taskbar on our test machine in each mode:

Windows' own taskbar in Light mode with Transparency effects on (build 26100, no TranslucentTB).

Windows' own taskbar in Dark mode with Transparency effects on.

How these were captured

Captured October 29, 2026 on Windows build 26100 in our hands-on test; only cropped and resized. Settings used:

So if you want white text on a clear taskbar, set the Windows mode to Dark. If the text is hard to read on a bright wallpaper, keep the mode and give the taskbar some alpha, for example clear #00000066, or use acrylic. There is no TranslucentTB setting for text or icon color.

How to make the taskbar fully transparent

1. Desktop: Clear

   Right-click the tray icon, open Desktop, choose Clear. The default color is already #00000000; if you changed it, open Accent Color and drag the alpha to 0.

2. Hide the line and peek button

   In the same submenu turn off Show taskbar border (Windows 11) or Show Desktop Peek Button (Windows 10).

3. Keep it clear with windows open

   If you enabled Maximized window, a maximized window turns the taskbar acrylic. Either set it to Clear, or uncheck its Enabled item so the desktop look is used. Do the same for Visible window if you turned it on.

4. Exit once to save

   Tray changes are saved when you click Exit or Windows shuts down. Restart TranslucentTB afterwards.

The same thing as settings.json:

"desktop_appearance": { "accent": "clear", "color": "#00000000", "show_peek": false, "show_line": false },
"visible_window_appearance": { "enabled": false },
"maximized_window_appearance": { "enabled": true, "accent": "clear", "color": "#00000000", "show_line": false }

Windows still decides the color of the icons and clock (white in dark mode, black in light mode). On a bright wallpaper with a dark-mode taskbar, a light tint such as #00000033 keeps them readable.

The same steps in the tray menu, captured on a real machine:

1. Right-click the TranslucentTB tray icon

   

2. Open Desktop and pick Clear

   Clear is the default; the dot shows the current choice.

   

3. Repeat for Visible window and Maximized window if you turned them on

   Or leave them off, so the desktop look is used with windows open too.

FAQ

Something wrong or out of date? Email hello@translucenttb.dev and we will fix it.