PeekDesktop 👀

Click empty desktop wallpaper to reveal your desktop — just like macOS Sonoma.

PeekDesktop brings macOS Sonoma's "click wallpaper to reveal desktop" feature to Windows 10 and 11. By default it uses Explorer's native Show Desktop behavior, and it also includes optional Classic Minimize, Fly Away, and Virtual Desktop (Experimental) peek styles from the tray menu. Click or drag desktop icons normally without accidentally triggering peek. When you're done, click any window, the taskbar, or the wallpaper again and everything comes right back where it was.

Download

📥 Download the latest release

File	Platform
PeekDesktop-vX.Y-win-x64.zip	Intel/AMD (most PCs)
PeekDesktop-vX.Y-win-arm64.zip	ARM64 (Surface Pro X, Snapdragon, etc.)

No installer needed. Download the zip, extract it, and run PeekDesktop.exe. Release builds are self-contained, so you do not need to install .NET separately. It lives in your system tray and can notify you when a newer GitHub Release is available.

Documentation

• Engineering Deep Dive - architecture, shell internals, experiments, debugging workflow, undocumented API notes, and release tradeoffs

How It Works

1. Click empty desktop wallpaper (not an icon) -> your desktop is revealed
2. Stay on the desktop -> click or drag icons, right-click, and rearrange things while windows stay hidden
3. Click any app, the taskbar, or empty wallpaper again -> all windows restore to exactly where they were

That's it. It just works.

Peek Styles

PeekDesktop includes four styles you can switch live from the tray icon:

• Native Show Desktop (Explorer) — the default and recommended mode
• Classic Minimize — minimizes and restores tracked windows
• Fly Away (Experimental) — animates windows offscreen before restoring them
• Virtual Desktop (Experimental) — briefly switches to an empty shell desktop for a surprisingly convincing reveal effect

The virtual desktop mode is intentionally marked experimental, but it's interesting enough to keep around.

Under the Hood

PeekDesktop uses lightweight Windows APIs:

• SetWindowsHookEx(WH_MOUSE_LL) — low-level mouse hook to detect desktop clicks
• WindowFromPoint — identifies the window under your cursor
• MSAA hit-testing (AccessibleObjectFromPoint) — distinguishes empty wallpaper from desktop icons
• Shell.Application.ToggleDesktop — uses Explorer's native Show Desktop path for the default mode
• EnumWindows + WINDOWPLACEMENT — captures exact position and state (including maximized) of every window
• SetWinEventHook(EVENT_SYSTEM_FOREGROUND) — watches for when you switch back to an app
• SetWindowPlacement — restores windows to their exact previous positions
• Windows virtual desktop shell COM — powers the experimental virtual-desktop reveal mode on supported systems

No admin rights required. Uses < 5 MB RAM idle.

System Tray

Right-click the tray icon for options:

• ✅ Enabled — toggle the peek feature on/off
• 🔁 Start with Windows — launch automatically at login
• 👀 Peek Style — switch between Explorer, minimize, fly-away, and virtual desktop modes
• ℹ️ About — version info
• ⬇️ Check for Updates — see if a newer version is out and open the download page
• ❌ Exit — quit PeekDesktop

What's New in v0.4.5

• Explorer Show Desktop is now the default
• Live peek-style switching from the tray menu
• Virtual Desktop (Experimental) as a fourth option
• Self-contained non-AOT release packaging for better compatibility while the experimental shell path settles
• Native Show Desktop reliability fix by correcting Win+D input interop (with shell fallback still available)
• Cleaner diagnostics output so DebugView and file logs no longer emit duplicate lines

macOS Sonoma vs PeekDesktop

Feature	macOS Sonoma	PeekDesktop
Click wallpaper to peek	✅	✅
Restore on app click	✅	✅
Restore on second wallpaper click	✅	✅
Clicking/dragging icons does not trigger peek	✅	✅
Desktop icons accessible	✅	✅
Exact window position restore	✅	✅
System tray control	❌	✅
Multi-monitor support	✅	✅
Start with OS	Login Items	✅ Registry
Smooth animation	✅	Coming soon

Build from Source

Requirements: .NET 10 SDK

git clone https://github.com/shanselman/PeekDesktop.git
cd PeekDesktop
dotnet build src/PeekDesktop/PeekDesktop.csproj

Run it

dotnet run --project src/PeekDesktop/PeekDesktop.csproj

Publish a self-contained single-file exe

# For Intel/AMD
dotnet publish src/PeekDesktop/PeekDesktop.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained -p:PublishSingleFile=true

# For ARM64
dotnet publish src/PeekDesktop/PeekDesktop.csproj -c Release -r win-arm64 --self-contained -p:PublishSingleFile=true

Release packaging

For now, the recommended shipping format is self-contained single-file publish output rather than Native AOT. That keeps the experimental virtual desktop mode working reliably while still producing an easy download-and-run app.

Architecture

src/PeekDesktop/
├── Program.cs          # Entry point, single-instance mutex
├── DesktopPeek.cs      # Core state machine (Idle ↔ Peeking)
├── MouseHook.cs        # WH_MOUSE_LL global mouse hook
├── FocusWatcher.cs     # EVENT_SYSTEM_FOREGROUND monitor
├── WindowTracker.cs    # Enumerate, minimize, and restore windows
├── DesktopDetector.cs  # Identify Progman/WorkerW desktop windows
├── TrayIcon.cs         # System tray NotifyIcon + context menu
├── Settings.cs         # JSON persistence + registry autostart
└── NativeMethods.cs    # Win32 P/Invoke declarations

State Machine

┌──────┐  empty wallpaper click   ┌─────────┐
│ Idle │ ───────────────→ │ Peeking │
│      │ ←─────────────── │         │
└──────┘  app click / taskbar      └─────────┘
          click / wallpaper click
          to restore

Contributing

PRs welcome! Current status and next ideas:

• Click empty wallpaper to peek
• Restore on app click or taskbar click
• Restore on a second wallpaper click
• Clicking or dragging desktop icons does not start peek
• Desktop icons remain usable while peeking
• Exact window positions are restored
• GitHub release-based update checks
• Smooth minimize/restore animations (slide/fade)
• Hotkey support (e.g., Ctrl+F12 to toggle peek)
• Per-monitor peek (only minimize windows on the clicked monitor)
• Exclude specific apps from being minimized
• Better icon (the current one is programmatically generated)
• Windows 11 widgets area awareness
• Sound effect on peek/restore

License

MIT