Y'all've probably run into the situation at home or at the office where you were doing something confidential on the computer and someone else came by right at that fourth dimension. If you haven't planned ahead of time, the only affair you lot could do is try to minimize the application, which is fairly wearisome and volition give the other person enough fourth dimension to run into what yous were doing.

In this article, I'yard going to bear witness you a couple of methods for quickly hiding your applications and windows, some of which will be more than obvious than others. Depending on who yous are trying to hide the windows from (boss, kids, married woman, etc), your optimal method may exist unlike.

CTRL + ALT + DEL

ctrl alt del

My favorite method past far is to simply printing CTRL + ALT + DEL and then press Enter. Past default the Lock Computer push button is highlighted. Pressing the 3 keys volition bring up a dialog with a few options similar Lock this estimator, Switch user, Log off etc. Pressing Enter will automatically select Lock this calculator.

ctrl alt del

This is the best method to hide everything on your desktop. The only downsides are it'southward non very subtle and you take to printing the aforementioned key philharmonic plus your password to unlock the computer.

If you have a keyboard that has the Windows primal on it, you tin can as well press Windows Key  + L. This is a much faster method to lock your PC than pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and then pressing Enter.

Windows Primal + D

If you don't want to have to enter your password once again, yous can try a different keyboard shortcut. No matter how many programs or windows you lot have open on your desktop, you can minimize all of them past pressing Windows Key + D.

This will minimize everything that is open up on the desktop. Of course, you have to have a Microsoft keyboard that has the actual Windows primal on information technology.

windows key

This central combo is very like to the Testify Desktop button that used to be on the taskbar in Windows XP. If you really liked that feature, you can enable the Evidence Desktop icon in Windows 7 too. I also tested adding the quick launch toolbar to Windows 8 and enabling the Bear witness Desktop icon at that place too. Windows Key + D likewise works simply fine on Windows 7 and Windows viii without having to enable the Bear witness Desktop icon.

Screensaver Shortcut

Another bang-up way to hibernate your desktop is to start up the screen saver. All screensavers are stored in Windows using the .SCR file extension. Go ahead and perform a Windows search for *.scr and yous should get a list of all the screensavers on your computer.

screensavers windows

Now all you have to do is create a shortcut to whatsoever of these files on your desktop or quick launch bar. Only double-click on the shortcut and your screensaver starts up automatically, no need to wait for the idle time to kicking in!

You can create a shortcut to the .SCR file by correct clicking on it, going to Send To and choosing Desktop (create shortcut).

screensaver desktop

If that'due south not fast enough for y'all or your hands tend to exist on the keyboard more than than the mouse, then yous can also apply a programme called AutoHotKey to assign a hotkey to run the .SCR file whenever you desire. There is a bit of a learning curve to using AutoHotKey, but it is quite powerful even if yous use merely a small fraction of its features.

Third Party Utilities

All of the methods above require keyboard interaction, which is ok for laptop users, but may be slower for desktop users who have their hands on a mouse virtually of the time. There are some actually good freeware utilities that will let you lot hide individual applications or all applications using hotkeys or mouse clicks.

Windows Hide Tool

Windows Hide Tool is probably my favorite petty program for hiding Windows programs considering it'due south piece of cake to use and works very finer. The best part is that information technology removes the program icon from the Windows taskbar in addition to hiding it from your desktop. This will arrive seem similar the program wasn't fifty-fifty running on your organisation.

Once you lot install it on your organization, a small blue icon will announced in your notification area. By default, clicking on the icon volition hide the active window on your desktop. Clicking on the icon again volition bring that application back.

windows hide tool

If you right-click on the icon, you'll see a bunch of options similar Hibernate All Windows, Testify All Windows, Hidden Windows, etc. Those are all pretty obvious equally to what action they will perform.

hide tool options

If you click on Preferences, you'll exist able to fix up the hotkeys and modify what happens when you lot either single-click or double-click on the icon in the notification expanse.

preferences hide windows

By default, single clicks will hide/show the currently agile window. You can change this to multiple combinations or hiding/showing all windows. What's also absurd about the program is that you can set a password when showing a window, closing an application or when opening the preferences dialog for the program.

Then even if y'all leave your figurer and someone tries to bring upward the hidden program, they volition have to type in a countersign in order to see information technology. There are no hotkeys gear up initially, only you can apace set them here past clicking in the box and so pressing the key combo you desire.

ClickyGone

ClickyGone is some other program that pretty much does the aforementioned thing, just with different options. Once you lot install it, an icon volition announced in the notification expanse. Right-click on it and choose Config.

clickygone

The Kickoff screen tells yous the current shortcuts for hiding windows in various ways. To click and hibernate, for instance, yous need to press and hold downward CTRL + ALT and then click anywhere on a window. That program will disappear and can be bought back by using the Toggle All Windows keyboard shortcut, by correct clicking on the icon in the arrangement tray or by pressing the Clicky Gone Menu keyboard shortcut.

It's worth noting that the programme lists out the shortcuts with the modifiers at the terminate rather than the outset. For example, to hibernate the active window, press SHIFT + CTRL and then press \. The way it shows it in the program, y'all would think you need to press \ and so SHIFT + CTRL, but that won't work.

start screen

On the General tab, y'all can choose whether to bear witness the icon in the system tray or not, whether to testify hidden programs in the system tray and whether to foreclose adventitious clicks on full screen apps.

clickygone general

All of the screens after Advanced basically permit you suit the hotkeys for performing diverse tasks like hiding the active window, clicking to hide, showing the ClickyGone menu, etc. The merely feature this programme doesn't have that I liked in Windows Hide Tool was the ability to set a password before bringing back hidden windows.

Hopefully, these are enough tools and options for yous to properly hide your data and applications from prying eyes. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Savour!