Windows 11 may eventually get an option to tidy up the system tray

Windows 11 users might eventually get the ability to declutter the taskbar somewhat, or more specifically, the system tray at the far-right end of the bar.

As spotted by known Windows leaker PhantomOfEarth on Twitter, Microsoft could be working on a feature to allow users to turn off the clock display (date/time) in the system tray.

Or at least some hidden code points to the existence of such functionality, even if it hasn't yet been enabled in testing - these nuggets were uncovered in preview build 25300 of Windows 11 (which was recently released).

If you don't want to see the current time (or indeed date), switching this off would give you more room for other icons in the system tray (perhaps helping to avoid using the flyout menu in the tray to access icons that aren't displayed by default on the taskbar).

Personally, we quite like having the time accessible at a glance at the bottom of our Windows desktop, but it's always good to have a choice about things, and there's no denying that the clock takes up a fair bit of real-estate in the rather compact system tray.

Whatever your feelings about the taskbar clock, as the leaker points out in the tweet, just because something is present in testing doesn't mean it'll necessarily see the light of day in the release version of Windows 11.

Indeed, in this case, the functionality isn't even enabled in the preview build, so it could be some time yet before Microsoft starts actually testing the ability and getting feedback from Windows Insiders.

This will be one to keep an eye on, then, and it won't turn up in the near future - perhaps this will be part of the major feature update for later in the year (Windows 11 23H2).