Enable iTunes taskbar player
Jul 14th, 2007 by Jared Schwager
If you’ve used Windows Media Player before you may have noticed that when you minimize it, a mini-player in your Windows taskbar will appear. Believe it or not, the same functionality exists in iTunes. I’ll show you how to enable the taskbar player for iTunes.
Firstly, open up the iTunes Preferences under the “Edit” menu. In the preferences window that appears go to the “Advanced” tab. Find the option Minimize iTunes window to system tray and make sure it is unchecked.
Make your way down to the Windows taskbar. Right-click the taskbar, go to “Toolbars” and click on iTunes. Now whenever you minimize iTunes the taskbar player will appear, giving you limited control of your music without having to maximize iTunes.
NOTE: Using the iTunes taskbar player in Windows Vista will disable the taskbar transparency.

Fantastic. Thank you.
Doesn’t seem to work in most recent build of Vista, home premium, the itunes option isn;t in the ‘toolbars’.
Nathan, that’s odd. I am using Vista and even took the screenshot from in Vista. Try setting the compatibility setting for iTunes to Windows XP SP2.
Perfect, just the trick I was after. Thanks!
Thank you for sharing this excellent piece of knowledge. I was surprised this would need no 3rd party software and it makes using iTunes so much easier!
Ok, i know how to minimize it but ive seen some placers where the miniplayer in the taskbar shows the current song playing. Now, ive got my miniplayer in the taskbar but im not seeing the current song playing. So how do i get that?
spokexx, as far as I know, the iTunes taskbar player isn’t capable of displaying the currently playing song title. I’d love it if you could send me one of those screenshots of the taskbar player with the currently playing song title.
Hey Jared. I THINK i remember seeing that mini-player with the song displayed on an old iMac with an early version of iTunes. Maybe this feature has been removed, but i swaer i used to see the mini-player in the taskbar with controls and all, and it would show the currently playing song scrolling across it.
spokexx i know that if u slide your mouse over the itunes icon in the system tray it will tell you that info, but i dont think you can do it with the mini-player
I, too, remember the old iTunes version that had the song title scrolling in the taskbar. It must have been removed a few releases ago though, as I have been searching (fruitlessly) for that feature setting ever since. It’s probably been a couple years since I remember seeing it. I actually found this post while looking for it. Which, by the way, thanks! I also wanted to enable taskbar control, so this helped me solve that problem as well! Oh, I too am running the latest Vista with this enabled with no problems.
Cheers for that mate, was very helpful! i used to use it on my old pc and i just could not remember how i set it up for life of me!!!
Thanks x
Ahh, such a simple answer to something thats bothered me for months now!
How do you change compatibility to XP?
thank you so much!
If you click on the triangle in the lower right corner of the taskbar player, a menu appears showing the name and artist of the current song in gray. It would be nice if it would automatically displayed this information, but I guess that’s the closest you can get without having to maximize the player.
this what i was looking for
Thanks very much
perfect
i have i tunes installed on a flashdrive to save space onmy rather slow aspire 1350 series, in the tool bar drop box there is not an option for i tunes does any one know a way to have it there with out installing i tunes on my laptop.
I have just downloaded iTunes 9 and have lost all control of my iTunes when it is in my taskbar. I can see it, but i can’t push any off the buttons, and its now a waste of space. Help i want it back.
ty so much id been wracking m brains trying to remember how to do that. much appreciated
dude thanks this is great
I know MediaMonkey has the feature to automatically display the song details whenever a new song is played. I was wondering if this feature was hidden somewhere in iTunes but i guess not.
i too remember a time when the “taskbar itunes” would scroll song info, and i wish they would bring it back. in fact, it would be so easy to program! just make the whole thing a touch wider, switch the volume slider from horizontal to vertical, then use the new space for the info window. i wonder why they removed it in the first place.
Thanks alot lol, the first site i’ve come across that actually is very easy to understand and is what everyone needs!!!
THANKS!
ROCK ON! This was annoying the heck out of me for so long…
Thank god. Now I know how to get the mini-player OUT of the taskbar. I’m a ALT-TABer , and when itunes is in the tray, it can’t be tabb’d to.