App Icon Stealth Mode: Hide Pluely v1 From Your Dock

App Icon Stealth Mode is the Pluely v1 Settings control built specifically for discretion. Its description in the app spells out exactly what it is for: to "control dock/taskbar icon visibility when window is hidden for maximum discretion." In other words, this setting decides whether anyone glancing at your dock or taskbar can tell Pluely is running at all, once its window is out of view.

What it does

App Icon Stealth Mode is a two-state toggle:

• Visible — shown in Pluely v1 as "Show Icon in Dock/Taskbar." Pluely's icon appears in your dock (on macOS) or taskbar (on Windows) like any normal application, even while its window is hidden.
• Hidden — shown in Pluely v1 as "Hide Icon from Dock/Taskbar." Once the window is hidden, no icon lingers in your dock or taskbar to hint that Pluely is open in the background.

With Hidden on, nothing of Pluely shows in the Dock or taskbar: not while the overlay is on screen, not while it is hidden, and not while the Dashboard is open. On macOS the Dock icon disappears the moment the switch flips and Pluely leaves the Cmd+Tab switcher. On Windows and Linux the overlay and the Dashboard both stay out of the taskbar. Pluely keeps running in the background either way; summon the overlay with its keyboard shortcut.

Windows: quit and reopen once. Windows only redraws a taskbar button when its window is created, so after you turn Hidden on, quit Pluely (Quit Pluely at the bottom of the overlay settings, or Quit in the dashboard sidebar) and open it again. From then on the button stays gone.

How to enable or disable it

1. Open the Pluely Settings window ("Manage your settings").
2. Find App Icon Stealth Mode and read its description: "Control dock/taskbar icon visibility when window is hidden for maximum discretion."
3. Choose Show Icon in Dock/Taskbar to keep the icon visible at all times, or Hide Icon from Dock/Taskbar for maximum discretion when the window is hidden.
4. On macOS and Linux the change applies immediately. On Windows, quit and reopen Pluely once to finish.

When to use Hidden

Choose "Hide Icon from Dock/Taskbar" any time you are sharing your screen — during an interview, a meeting, a screen recording, or a livestream — and you want no visible sign of Pluely, even a glance at your taskbar, to give away that it is running. Combined with hiding the overlay window itself, Hidden mode keeps your dock or taskbar looking exactly as it would if Pluely were not open at all.

When to use Visible

Choose "Show Icon in Dock/Taskbar" for everyday, non-sensitive use, where you actually want the icon there as a quick way to click back into Pluely, check that it is running, or use dock/taskbar-specific features your operating system provides (like right-click menus or icon badges). Most people leave this on Visible unless they specifically need to present a clean screen to someone else.

Removing the icon completely, per operating system

The toggle hides the icon of the running app. If you've pinned Pluely, the pinned shortcut is managed by your OS and needs one extra manual step:

macOS (Dock)

1. Turn on Hide Icon from Dock/Taskbar in Pluely's Settings.
2. If Pluely is pinned ("Keep in Dock"), the Dock keeps its own shortcut: right-click the Pluely icon in the Dock → Options → Remove from Dock (or drag the icon out of the Dock until "Remove" appears).

After both steps, nothing in the Dock shows Pluely — running or not.

Windows (taskbar) — the full checklist

On Windows the taskbar can show Pluely in three different ways, and the toggle only controls one of them. To leave no trace, walk through all three:

1. Turn on Hide Icon from Dock/Taskbar in Pluely's Settings. This takes the running app's button off the taskbar, for the overlay and for the Dashboard.
2. Quit and reopen Pluely once. Windows only redraws a taskbar button when its window is created, so the running copy keeps its button until the next launch. Use Quit Pluely at the bottom of the overlay settings, then open Pluely again.
3. Unpin the shortcut. If you ever pinned Pluely, Windows keeps its own pinned icon on the taskbar even when the app isn't running — the toggle cannot touch it. Right-click the pinned Pluely icon → Unpin from taskbar. If Pluely is also pinned to the Start menu: Start → right-click Pluely → Unpin from Start.

What you should expect after all three steps:

• Overlay hidden → nothing in the taskbar, nothing in Alt+Tab.
• Overlay visible → the overlay itself stays out of the taskbar and out of screen captures, so a glance at the taskbar still shows nothing.
• Dashboard open → still nothing in the taskbar. Close it with its own close button or the Open dashboard chip.
• Pluely still runs in the background either way — summon it any time with its keyboard shortcut.

Ubuntu / Linux (dock & panel)

1. Turn on Hide Icon from Dock/Taskbar — Pluely asks the panel to skip its window entry (support varies by desktop environment; GNOME with default settings honors it).
2. If Pluely sits in the GNOME dash/dock favorites: right-click the icon → Remove from Favorites (on KDE: right-click → Unpin from Task Manager).

On the Free plan the toggle starts off (icon visible). The moment a Pro license activates, on any Pro plan including Dev Pro, it switches on together with Always On Top, on every activation. It stays a normal switch afterwards. See What switches on with a license.

How this fits with the rest of stealth

App Icon Stealth Mode is one piece of Pluely's broader discretion story — it governs the icon only, not the window itself. Hiding the overlay window is a separate action (typically a keyboard shortcut), and Always On Top Mode governs whether a visible window can be covered by other apps. For the complete picture of how Pluely stays unnoticed during a screen share — including what does and does not appear in recordings — see Stealth & privacy.

Related

See Always On Top Mode and Launch on Startup for the other background-behavior settings, and Keyboard shortcuts for hiding and summoning the window itself. For the full list of Settings sections, return to the Settings overview.