DeskTabs v1.1.8

⬇ Download

DeskTabs-Setup-v1.1.8.exe: a normal setup wizard. Pick a folder or keep the suggested one, tick autostart, done. No admin rights needed, and DeskTabs shows up in Apps & features with a proper uninstaller. An update keeps your settings, icons and time logs.

DeskTabs-v1.1.8.zip: the portable route. Unpack it anywhere, keep the folder together and run DeskTabs.exe.

Both files are also listed under Assets at the bottom of this page, together with SHA256SUMS.txt to check them. One line in PowerShell works as well:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex

---

A release about moving windows between desktops, the most requested gap in Windows 11.

Send a window to another desktop

• Shift + click a tab sends the window you are working in to that desktop. You stay where you are, the tab blinks briefly to confirm.
• Ctrl + Shift + click takes the window along and switches there too.
• Drag a window by its title bar onto a tab and let go: it moves there and keeps its size and position. The target tab lights up in its colour while you drag (DragToTab).
• Right-click a tab: the first entry Move “…” here does the same, and Bring a window here › lists every window of your current desktop.
• Keyboard: Ctrl+Win+Shift+1 … 0 (with the keyboard shortcuts on).

Show a window on all desktops

• Right-click the grip ≡: Show “…” on all desktops for this window, or All windows of “…” on all desktops for the whole app.
• Or drag the window onto ≡. Drag it there again and it lives on one desktop only.
• DeskTabs respects the Windows setting: a window shown on all desktops that you move to a tab loses that setting, and the tip says so. An app set to all desktops is left untouched.

More

• Attention dot: when a program on another desktop flashes for attention, that desktop's tab gets a small orange dot until you go there (AttentionDot).
• Back to the last desktop: middle-click the bar or press Ctrl+Win+Backspace. Short transitions do not count.
• The desktop name at the top of the tab menu is easier to read.

Fixes

• A right-click on another tab while a menu was open was sometimes ignored.
• The bar repaints immediately, so highlights follow the mouse and the active desktop without delay.

Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start because the executable is not signed, and Smart App Control blocks it outright. Until the app is signed, people with Smart App Control can run DeskTabs from source with AutoHotkey v2, see the README.

DeskTabs v1.1.7

⬇ Download

DeskTabs-Setup-v1.1.7.exe: a normal setup wizard. Pick a folder or keep the suggested one, tick autostart, done. No admin rights needed, and DeskTabs shows up in Apps & features with a proper uninstaller. An update keeps your settings, icons and time logs.

DeskTabs-v1.1.7.zip: the portable route. Unpack it anywhere, keep the folder together and run DeskTabs.exe.

Both files are also listed under Assets at the bottom of this page, together with SHA256SUMS.txt to check them. One line in PowerShell works as well:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex

---

A release about a cleaner time log.

Time log: transitions no longer count as stays

Stepping through desktops with Ctrl+Win+Arrow or the mouse wheel used to leave a row for every desktop you passed, often for a single second. On a week of real data these rows were 38 % of the log but only 0.5 % of the time.

• Stays shorter than 5 seconds (TimeLogMinSec) are now treated as transitions. They are not written; their seconds count towards the desktop you settle on, so the log stays gap-free and the daily total is unchanged.
• A quick glance at another desktop and straight back continues the row you came from instead of adding a second one.
• The newest row is written once the next real stay is certain. Locking the screen, going idle or quitting writes it immediately.
• TimeLogMinSec = 0 logs everything as before. Existing log files are not changed.

Documentation

• The README now has an FAQ (how to see the active desktop, switch with one click, colour and icons per desktop, time per project, why Windows suddenly jumps to another desktop) and a comparison with Windows 11 on its own.

Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start because the executable is not signed, and Smart App Control blocks it outright. Until the app is signed, people with Smart App Control can run DeskTabs from source with AutoHotkey v2, see the README.

DeskTabs v1.1.6

⬇ Download

DeskTabs-Setup-v1.1.6.exe: a normal setup wizard. Pick a folder or keep the suggested one, tick autostart, done. No admin rights needed, and DeskTabs shows up in Apps & features with a proper uninstaller. An update keeps your settings, icons and time logs.

DeskTabs-v1.1.6.zip: the portable route. Unpack it anywhere, keep the folder together and run DeskTabs.exe.

Both files are also listed under Assets at the bottom of this page, together with SHA256SUMS.txt to check them. One line in PowerShell works as well:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex

---

A release about never working on the wrong desktop without noticing.

Desktop switches by other apps are flagged

Open a PDF while your reader sits on another desktop, and Windows quietly switches you over. If you track time by desktop, that time lands on the wrong project until you notice.

DeskTabs now tells your own switches apart from those caused by other apps:

• Your switches stay quiet: tabs, mouse wheel, number keys, Ctrl+Win+Arrow, Win+Tab and Task View, creating or closing a desktop.
• Any other switch is flagged: the new tab flashes orange a few times, then keeps an orange frame until you hover it or switch on purpose. A short hint above the bar names the app that is now in front.
• Switch it off under More settings if you don't need it.

Active desktop

• New style: solid fill in its own colour. The active tab is filled with the desktop's own colour, and the label turns white or dark depending on what reads better. The previous solid style is now called Solid fill in the accent colour.
• Logos stay visible on a solid fill: if a website or image icon has too little contrast to the fill, it is shown as a white silhouette, or, for logos on their own dark tile, with light and dark inverted. Logos with enough contrast keep their colours.

Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start because the executable is not signed, and Smart App Control blocks it outright. Until the app is signed, people with Smart App Control can run DeskTabs from source with AutoHotkey v2, see the README.

DeskTabs v1.1.5

⬇ Download

DeskTabs-Setup-v1.1.5.exe: a normal setup wizard. Pick a folder or keep the suggested one, tick autostart, done. No admin rights needed, and DeskTabs shows up in Apps & features with a proper uninstaller. An update keeps your settings, icons and time logs.

DeskTabs-v1.1.5.zip: the portable route. Unpack it anywhere, keep the folder together and run DeskTabs.exe.

Both files are also listed under Assets at the bottom of this page, together with SHA256SUMS.txt to check them. One line in PowerShell works as well:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex

---

A release about numbers and about finding your way around the menu.

Desktop numbers

• Number badges: while the keyboard shortcuts are on, a small numbered badge sits on the top left of each icon and shows the key that jumps there (desktop 10 shows 0). Switch it on or off under View › Numbers.
• The number as the icon: a filled circle in the desktop colour with the digits cut out, so the tab shows through. Pick it per desktop under Icon › Number as icon, or for every desktop without an icon of its own under View › Icons.

A clearer right-click menu

• Fixed: several submenus listed their entries in alphabetical order instead of the intended one, for example the view levels and the modifier keys.
• New structure: the tab part starts with Icon, Colour and Abbreviation. View lists what a tab shows from wide to narrow, with Icons and Numbers as small submenus. Bold label now sits under Active desktop. Rarely used switches moved to More settings.
• Clearer names in German and English, for example Light or dark instead of Theme and Match Windows instead of Automatic (Windows).
• The menu now opens with a header showing the app icon, the name and the version.

Also new

• Time log in its own folder: the monthly CSV files now live in timelog\ inside the program folder. Existing files are moved there on the next start. More settings › Time log › Open folder takes you straight to them.
• Dark theme: icons and badges on the active tab no longer fade into its tint.
• Removed: the docking option Above the taskbar. It covered the bottom edge of every window and was not usable in daily work. If you had it on, the bar returns to the taskbar.

Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start because the executable is not signed, and Smart App Control blocks it outright. Until the app is signed, people with Smart App Control can run DeskTabs from source with AutoHotkey v2, see the README.

DeskTabs v1.1.4

⬇ Download

DeskTabs-Setup-v1.1.4.exe: a normal setup wizard. Pick a folder or keep the suggested one, tick autostart, done. No admin rights needed, and DeskTabs shows up in Apps & features with a proper uninstaller. An update keeps your settings, icons and time logs.

DeskTabs-v1.1.4.zip: the portable route. Unpack it anywhere, keep the folder together and run DeskTabs.exe.

Both files are also listed under Assets at the bottom of this page, together with SHA256SUMS.txt to check them. One line in PowerShell works as well:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex

---

A release about the first impression and about picking icons.

Looks finished from the first start

A fresh install no longer shows a plain row of names. Out of the box every desktop gets its own colour, a large icon next to its name and the light tint on the active one:

• The automatic view starts at large icon + name and only steps down when the bar runs out of room.
• Desktops without an icon of their own get one from a suggested set (DefaultIcons). Nothing is written to your settings; pick your own icon or choose Remove icon and the suggestion is gone.
• The desktop number in front of the name is now off by default (ShowIndex).

Icon library: pick, then confirm

• Fixed: clicking an icon could apply a different one. The click position was measured against the outer window instead of the grid, 31 px too low and 8 px too far right. Most clicks picked the icon one row further down, and clicks in the last row or column did nothing at all.
• A click now marks the icon; OK or Enter applies it, a double-click applies it at once, Cancel leaves everything as it was.
• The desktop's current icon is preselected and scrolled into view.
• The name of the icon under the mouse sits below the grid instead of in a floating tooltip, which showed wrong names and could swallow clicks.
• The grid no longer flashes when you move the mouse over it or scroll.
• The search box has a clear button, and the quick filters (Files, Data, Media, Messages ...) now search several terms at once, in English and German: 26 to 127 hits each instead of one to five.

Everything else

Unchanged from v1.1.3: the clearly marked active desktop, keyboard shortcuts for jumping to a desktop, tab icons from a website or a file, settings that survive a deleted desktop, the setup wizard, and reproducible builds with checksums.

Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start because the executable is not signed, and Smart App Control blocks it outright. Free code signing for open source is being applied for (#10). Until then, people with Smart App Control can run DeskTabs from source with AutoHotkey v2, see the README.

v1.1.3 — the active desktop stands out

⬇ Download

DeskTabs-Setup-v1.1.3.exe — a normal setup wizard: pick a folder or keep the suggested one, tick autostart, done. No admin rights needed, and DeskTabs shows up in Apps & features with a proper uninstaller. An update keeps your settings, icons and time logs.

DeskTabs-v1.1.3.zip — the portable route: unpack it anywhere, keep the folder together and run DeskTabs.exe.

Both files are also listed under Assets at the bottom of this page. One line in PowerShell works as well:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex

---

A small release about seeing which desktop you are on.

The active desktop stands out

• Its colour bar is thicker and wider than the others, so the bar reads at a glance instead of on second look (ActiveBarBoost).
• The tint behind it was retuned: same hue, light enough that the label stays easy to read (TintL 86 in the light theme, 32 in the dark one).
• Optional: bold label for the active desktop, off by default, in the right-click menu under View (ActiveBold).

Fixed

• With the active style set to Uniform, solid fill, an icon from the built-in library was drawn in the desktop's own colour and nearly vanished into the fill. Library icons now switch to the label colour on a solid tab. Icons that come from a website or an image file keep their own colours, as they should.

Everything else

Unchanged from v1.1.2: keyboard shortcuts for jumping to a desktop, the icon library with search, tab icons from a website or a file, settings that survive a deleted desktop, the setup wizard, and reproducible builds with checksums.

Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start because the executable is not signed, and Smart App Control blocks it outright; free code signing for open source is being applied for (#10). Until then, people with Smart App Control can run DeskTabs from source with AutoHotkey v2 — see the README.

v1.1.2 — keyboard shortcuts, easier download

⬇ Download

DeskTabs-Setup-v1.1.2.exe (2.7 MB) — a normal setup wizard: pick a folder or keep the suggested one, tick autostart, done. No admin rights needed, and DeskTabs shows up in Apps & features with a proper uninstaller. An update keeps your settings, icons and time logs; uninstalling asks whether to keep them.

DeskTabs-v1.1.2.zip (0.9 MB) — the portable route: unpack it anywhere, keep the folder together and run DeskTabs.exe.

Both files are also listed under Assets at the bottom of this page. One line in PowerShell works as well:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex

---

Keyboard shortcuts

Jump straight to a desktop with a number key — from the number row or from the numpad, which works whether NumLock is on or off. Off by default, so DeskTabs never takes a combination from you unasked.

Turn it on in the right-click menu under Keyboard shortcuts; the menu entry shows the state at a glance ("off" or "Ctrl + Windows + 1 … 0"). The modifier is yours to build: Ctrl, Shift, Alt and Windows can be combined freely, at least one has to stay. Picking a modifier while the shortcuts are off switches them on.

Both settings live in settings.ini as [View] Hotkeys and HotkeyMod (for example ^+#) and take effect immediately, including when the file is edited from outside.

Finding the download

• The README now opens with a download block, and every release starts with the file to grab.
• https://github.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/releases/latest/download/DeskTabs-latest.zip is a link that always points at the newest version.

Windows may block the app

DeskTabs is not code-signed yet, and two Windows features react differently to that:

• SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC" — click More info → Run anyway.
• Smart App Control blocks the executable with no way to allow it, not even a "run anyway". Verified on a clean Windows 11 laptop. If you have it switched on, run DeskTabs from source instead: install AutoHotkey v2, download the source ZIP and double-click DeskTabs.ahk — that route was verified to work with Smart App Control enabled. Please do not switch the protection off for this app.

Free code signing for open source is being applied for (#10); it will remove both warnings.

Also in this release

• New screenshots, showing the bar with icons instead of the old text-only look.
• The German README uses German screenshots.

v1.1.1 — settings survive a deleted desktop, clean install and uninstall

⬇ Download

DeskTabs-v1.1.1.zip (0.9 MB) — the file is also listed under Assets at the bottom of this page. Unpack it anywhere, keep the folder together and run DeskTabs.exe. No installer, no admin rights.

One line in PowerShell instead:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex

---

A follow-up to v1.1.0, mostly about keeping your settings and about installing and removing DeskTabs cleanly.

Your settings survive a deleted desktop

Colour, abbreviation and icon belong to the desktop name, and they stay in settings.ini when you delete a desktop. Finish a client project, remove its desktop, and months later create it again: the tab looks the way it did. Matching is forgiving, so a slightly different spelling still finds the old entry. "wolf-automobile", "WOLF AUTOMOBILE" and "Wolf Automobile" are the same desktop as far as DeskTabs is concerned; case, spaces, punctuation and umlaut spellings (ü / ue) are ignored.

Sections are now read with a UTF-8-aware parser, because the Windows INI API cannot read UTF-8 and mangled names with umlauts.

Installing, updating, removing

• Updates keep your data. The old setup.ps1 deleted the whole program folder on update, which took settings.ini, the icon cache and the time logs with it. They are now preserved.
• setup.ps1 -Uninstall stops DeskTabs, removes the autostart entry and the program folder, and asks whether to keep your settings, icons and time logs (they are moved to a folder in %TEMP% if you say yes).
• -NoAutostart and -NoLaunch for a quieter install.
• First start shows a one-time hint that a click switches desktops and a right-click opens every setting.
• The READMEs explain the SmartScreen warning, what the setup script does, and how to remove everything.

View menu

• Two new levels: icon only (large) and large icon + name, both drawing the icon at taskbar size.
• The levels are named after what a tab actually shows (full name, short name, abbreviation or number), because the numbers are a separate switch.
• That switch and its siblings (show icons, colour coding, dividers) now live in the view submenu, next to the levels they affect.

Feedback

The Help menu now names the route: report a bug or suggest an idea on GitHub, or send the same by e-mail with a prepared message (subject, a short structure and your DeskTabs and Windows version at the end) for anyone without a GitHub account.

Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start because the executable is not signed: "More info" → "Run anyway".

v1.1.0 — icons, Fluent look, direct jump

DeskTabs v1.1.0 is a big step for how the bar looks and how much you can do without touching a file.

New

Fluent look. The bar is now drawn with GDI+: rounded tabs, anti-aliased text, subtle vertical gradients, and the active desktop tinted in its own colour (the hue is kept and only the lightness comes from the theme, so colours stay clean instead of muddy). Hovering lightens a tab the way the Windows 11 taskbar buttons do. The active style is switchable: own desktop colour, uniform accent colour, or a solid fill.

Tab icons. Give a desktop an icon and the bar shows it:

• Icon library built into the app: the whole Segoe Fluent Icons font that Windows 11 ships with (1533 icons), with a search box that works in English and German, quick filters by topic, a scrollable grid and hover names. Library icons are drawn in the desktop's own colour.
• From a website: type a domain and DeskTabs fetches the site icon in the best resolution it can find (apple-touch-icon, large rel=icon, favicon.ico, favicon service) and caches it.
• Your own image file (.ico/.png/.jpg/.bmp/.gif).
• Take the colour from the icon: derives the dominant colour of a fetched icon and uses it for that desktop.
• In the compact "icon" level a tab with an icon shows only that icon, at taskbar size on a square chip.

Direct jump. Clicking a tab now jumps straight to that desktop in one step instead of stepping through the desktops in between. Measured on Windows 11 25H2 (26200) the focused window stays where it is; if a build does drag it along, DeskTabs moves it right back. The old step-by-step switching is still available in the menu.

Help, feedback and updates. A Help menu with the documentation, the changelog, "Report a bug" and "Suggest an idea" (both open a pre-filled GitHub issue), an e-mail to the author, and an update check. Once a day DeskTabs asks the GitHub releases API for the latest version number (nothing else is sent) and shows a tray hint if a newer release exists; switch it off with UpdateCheck = 0. Plus an About dialog with version, licence and links.

More polish.

• The right-click menu carries icons, and the tray icon now opens the full settings menu directly.
• The colour submenu shows named colour swatches instead of hex codes.
• DeskTabs has its own app icon.
• The drag handle shows the move cursor.
• No more flicker: the bar paints itself from a buffer and only redraws when something visibly changed.

Fixed

• Hovering a tab no longer flickers.
• Drawing and hit-testing in the icon library could break after the first hover (a case-insensitive name collision in the code).

Configuration

Everything the menu does can also be set in settings.ini, and changes are picked up within about a second, no restart. New keys: ActiveStyle, TintL, TintS, GradientPct, HoverPct, CornerRadius, TabMargin, ShowIcons, IconSize, IconOnlySize, IconGap, ShowDividers, UpdateCheck, SwitchMethod. New sections: [Icons] (Desktop name = URL, path or glyph:E713).

Install

Download the ZIP, unpack it anywhere and run DeskTabs.exe. Keep the folder together: VirtualDesktopAccessor.dll is required, lang\ holds the language files and data\glyph-names.txt makes the icon library searchable. Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start because the executable is not signed: "More info" → "Run anyway".

There is no auto-update. If you want a new version, download it here or run setup.ps1 again.

Credits

The icon library uses the Segoe Fluent Icons font that Windows 11 ships with (nothing is bundled) and the official icon names from the Microsoft documentation under CC BY 4.0. See THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md.

DeskTabs v1.0.2

Feature and fix release. Everything below is in the bundled DeskTabs-v1.0.2.exe.

New

• Compact levels — CompactMode = auto | full | short | icon. auto starts with full labels and steps down until the bar fits MaxBarWidthPct (40 %) of the taskbar width, so it works on narrow laptop taskbars. Switch manually with Ctrl + mouse wheel over the bar (wheel up past full returns to auto); the choice is remembered.
• Abbreviations per desktop — settings.ini [Short], e.g. BauPunkt Hain=BPH, used by the short and icon levels.
• Built-in time log — one CSV row per stay on a desktop in desktop-log_YYYY-MM.csv (start,end,seconds,desktop_index,desktop_name). Stays end on desktop switch, on lock screen, or after 5 minutes without input (closed at the start of the inactivity, so breaks are not counted). For anyone without a time tracker, and for coding agents that do your billing. TimeLog=0 turns it off.
• Live config — edits to settings.ini are applied within ~1.2 s, no restart. Handy when an AI agent configures the bar for you (see CLAUDE.md in the repo).
• Snap to taskbar — dragging the bar along the taskbar keeps it vertically locked; drag it clearly away to place it freely.

Fixed

• Fullscreen auto-hide on multiple monitors: a fullscreen video on another monitor no longer hides the bar; a fullscreen app on the bar's monitor (e.g. Lightroom with Shift+F) is detected even when it overhangs the screen edge or keeps its own toolbar window on top, and stays respected when you focus another monitor.
• Timers no longer touch the GUI while it is being rebuilt ("Gui has no window").
• Tray menu: proper umlaut in "Position zurücksetzen".

Install

Download DeskTabs-v1.0.2.zip, extract it anywhere (keep the .exe and VirtualDesktopAccessor.dll together), run the .exe. Or from PowerShell: irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paehtz/DeskTabs/main/setup.ps1 | iex (run it again later to update).

Note: there is no auto-update yet. If you installed via setup.ps1, just run the one-liner again. An in-app update notice is planned (#7).