Sometimes you need an open window be on top of all other applications and windows for various reasons. It can be beneficial for monitoring a particular application or watching a movie while working or sticking the audio player on top of all windows. Windows 10 does not offer any way to set a window on top of other windows. You can only arrange windows in cascading tiles which forces all windows to share the same screen space.
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In this article, we’ll discuss three utilities which will enable always on top feature in Windows 10. There are some programs which provide built-in option to make them always on top. We will also discuss those programs in this article. All the tools and utilities discussed in this article are free.
WindowTop
WindowTop is a freeware utility that allows you to pin your any app on the top of another app, so you can easily keep on working and do not need to minimize and maximize each page and app again & again. WindowTop also comes with exclusive features such as “Shrink Window”, an innovative way to minimize windows. And it has a dark/read mode, which you can use at night for reading purposes. This is a simple way to solve your issue and show any app on top of another app’s window.
Through Mouse – DeskPins
DeskPins is a freeware utility, you can simply use it with a click of your mouse. It gives you an unlimited number of pins and you can use those pins to put any app on the top of other application windows. Firstly, you have to download DeskPins from below link, and after installing, a pin icon will be available in the system tray.
Open any app window, if you want that specific window to stay on top of all another open window, then grab a pin from the system tray and your mouse will turn into a pin. Click on that particular window to pin it on top. The pinned window will have a red pin icon on its bar so you can easily see which window is pinned.
AutoHotkey Script for Always on top keyboard shortcut
Another quick way to set any window on top of all other windows is the keyboard shortcut. Just press the key combination to pin any application or tool “Always On Top”. You have to create a script with AutoHotKey which won’t be heavy for your system, then you can get access to it through shortcut keys to lock any app as a top one. Go with below steps to use Keyboard shortcut.
- Download AutoHotkey from here and run the installer to install it on your system.
- Right click on Desktop. Go to New, and select the option of AutoHotkey Script.
- Open the newly created script in the Notepad to edit it. Copy and Paste the following line into Notepad file.
^SPACE:: Winset, AlwaysOnTop, , A
- Now close the Notepad file, Double click on the script to run it. If it runs successfully, a green logo will appear in the System’s tray and represent that script is running in the background.
- You can now use “Ctrl+Space” key to set any active window to always on top of all other windows.
To unpin any window, again press “Ctrl+Space” key. You can also change key combination according to your needs.
StayOnTop
StayOnTop is a simple and useful application with a single function that puts your required app on top of all application windows. No matter how many windows you have opened, just right-click on it to view all open windows, and select your required window to keep it on Always On Top. You can use this tool to fulfill your need of putting any needed app on Always On Top, that was a missing feature in Windows 10. It can be accessed through the system tray.
TurboTop
TurboTop is a very handy tool, you do not have to assign a pin for any app you want to set always on top, or do not need to press the key combination to pin any app on top. TurboTop sits in your System Tray and lets you set any window to be “Always on Top”.
- Download TurboTop from this link
- A system tray icon will appear after downloading it.
- Right click on its icon to see the list of all active windows. to set any one window on top of all other windows, select it from the list.
- To unpin any pinned window, uncheck it from the list shown in TurboTop system tray icon.
Always On Top
Always On Top is a freeware third-party tool to let you make any application window on top of all other windows. It uses a script that configures the priorities of all active and open windows. You can pin any app on above of all other active windows. This would be helpful for you if you are watching a movie while working, or making notes from any website. Download it from the below link. An icon will be available in your system’s notification area. Open any app you want to stay it open as long as you want. After opening that particular app, press “Ctrl+Space” key to pinning it on top of all other active windows.
OnTopReplica
OnTopReplica is a real-time third-party tool, based on DWM thumbnails offers you to open window of our choice on the top of another active window. Create a clone by selecting your specific area or window which you want to stay on top. If your selected area of the window is large, you can resize it with OnTopReplica utility to have more space for other windows. You can set hotkeys to clone the window with OnTopReplica for your ease and convenience. .Net framework 4.0 or 4.5 is required by this utility to run on your system.
Download OnTopReplica from here
WinLister
WinLister is a small but a practical utility that can set any application to top-most mode, and that window will show to you on top of all other windows, or as a pinned window.
This utility also displays the list of opened windows on your system. For each window, some useful information is displayed: the title, the handle of the window, location, size, class name, process number, the name of the program that created the window, and more. In addition, you can easily hide, show, close, or save the windows list to text or HTML file. Both 32-bit and 64-bit systems are supported.
4t Tray Minimizer
4t Tray Minimizer is a lightweight but powerful window manager tool that performs several functions, including to pin your required open window as a top window. It can also minimize the window to tray, roll up/roll down, make transparent, hide/show the system tray.
PowerMenu
PowerMenu is a tool that gives you many working features including letting you put a window on top of all other open windows. You can also minimize an app to system’s tray to have more space on the Desktop and can change the transparency of app.
Always On Top is a useful feature which is missed by Microsoft in Windows 10 Operating System, but I hope by going through above ways, you can use Always On Top feature to pin any windows on the top of any other opened windows easily. From my opinion, I like StayOnTop tool because this performs one function only and that is required one.
7 comments
nick
Thank you for this tutorial, I already have AutoHotkey so this was easy and worked perfectly!
sikretp
great, this it the program that i was searching for <3
Jjay
Thanks for sharing with all the details. This helps a lot when I lost the app and I was unable to recall its title. I randomly ran through and found it here in just seconds. Now it stays on top of my desktop again.
Cathy Gutowski
I used to use Deskpins to automatically recognize the popup reminder from Outlook meetings and pin that on top whenever it appeared. But that was before Windows 10 and Outlook 16. I can get Deskpins to create an autopin rule for a reminder popup, but it won’t pin it when it occurs. Have you tried any of these other tools with reminder popups as an automatic function of the “always on top” software?
Usman Khurshid
For notification pop-ups, you could use the built-in Windows settings by going to Windows Settings –> System –> Notifications & actions. You can also use Focus assist to customize the timings of the notifications in Windows 10. Is this what you are looking for or you meant something else?
Klaus Röthig
I miss Window On Top from skybn.com in your list. I’ve been using it for years and it also works on Windows 10. Once opened, you simply drag the hand cursor to the window you want to keep on top and release it. That’s all. This can also be done with a shortcut – Ctrl+F8 – which allows you toggle between activating and deactivating the window on top.
Nowadays it is on version 3.8, which is a paid one, and it has some other features too. But maybe you still can find the old 2.1 version, which was free and still works perfectly.
Fadrick Paiva
Power Menu doesnt work on Windows 10.