How to get taskbar color with the Light theme on Windows 10 1903

Windows 10 1903 is out with its new Light theme and it’s terrible. The light theme is more a white theme where everything, everything is white and it’s blinding. You cannot set a color for the taskbar if you select the light theme. The option simply becomes inactive. Obviously, if you want to get taskbar color with the light theme, you’re going to need an app. Here’s two plausible solutions that do the trick.

Classic Shell

Classic Shell has been the go to app that Windows 10 users turn to when Microsoft screws up the UI of the OS. The Classic Shell app lets you force a taskbar color with the Light theme on Windows 10. Download and install the app, Run it, and go to the Taskbar tab.

Click the more button next to the Taskbar color field and enter the RGB value for the color you want on the taskbar. You should also change or consider changing the opacity though it’s not necessary.

Apply the change and you have taskbar color with the light theme.

Translucent taskbar

Translucent Taskbar is a very popular app that we fell in love with when it first came out. It doesn’t have an option to add color to the taskbar however, if you’re willing to make a little more effort with the wallpaper you set, this is a pretty good way to get color on the taskbar.

Download and run Translucent taskbar and set it either to clear or to blur. The icons on the taskbar will immediately become almost impossible to see if your wallpaper is dark. Change it to something that is light, or that is lighter at the bottom and you’re good to go.

Alternatively, you can add a color bar at the bottom of the wallpaper that you’re using. You can do this in most simple image editors. The above wallpaper with a color bar at the bottom would look like this after being edited.

And when applied as the wallpaper with the taskbar set to ‘clear’ looks like this. It can stand to be improved i.e., a lighter color for the taskbar can be used so that the icons are easier to see.

This method requires a little more effort since you have to edit the wallpaper you will use but it comes with the advantage of setting a different accent color and it gives your desktop a better look. Lastly, Translucent Taskbar is much lighter than Classic Shell and it won’t make any other changes to the OS.

There has to be at least one Mac at Microsoft that the UI/design team can use to see how to a light and dark theme is done right.