Solved: Windows 10 Search Bar Missing

Is your Windows 10 search bar missing? Windows 10 comes with Cortana. If you choose, you can have a Cortana search box display in your taskbar. If it’s hidden and not showing, here’s how to get it back.

Windows 10 Search Box and Cortana

With the release of Windows 10 Microsoft introduced its virtual assistant, Cortana, to the world. If you’re not familiar with Cortana you can learn more about what she (it?) can do in our article things to ask Cortana.

In previous versions of Windows you had a search box in the menu bar across the bottom of the screen.  Now, you can see a Cortana icon or Cortana search bar.

How to Show and Hide Windows 10 Search Box

You can customize what you want to see in your lower menu bar. Your options are:

• Cortana icon only
• Cortana icon and search bar you can type in
• Neither the Cortana icon or the search bar

How to Hide the Cortana Icon and Search Bar

To hide the search bar and Cortana icon in Windows 10:

1. right click on the bottom menu
2. click Cortana
3. click hidden

Now neither the icon nor search box will show in the menu.

How to Show the Cortana Icon Only

To only show the Cortana icon and hide the search box:

1. right click on the bottom menu
2. click Cortana
3. click show Cortana icon

How to Show the Cortana Icon and Search Box

To show the search bar in Windows 10:

1. right click on the bottom menu
2. click Cortana
3. click show search box (if you don’t see this option, proceed to the next part of our article to see how to enable this function)

Now you should see both the Cortana icon and the search box. This box allows you to type your search directly into the menu bar for faster access to the Windows 10 search functions. The search capabilities in Windows 10 are much more than previous versions of Windows. Check out this post for more details on how you can use this search.

Windows 10 Search Bar Missing

If you tried to show the Cortana icon and search bar using the method above but the option wasn’t available it’s probably because you have your taskbar icons set to small. With this setting enabled you don’t have the option of having the Windows 10 search box visible in the taskbar. To fix this:

1. right click on the taskbar (menu bar at the bottom of the screen)
2. click settings
3. make sure taskbar is selected on the left side of the window that opens
4. on the right side of the window,  turn off use small taskbar buttons
5. close the settings menu
6. right click on the taskbar again
7. click Cortana
8. you should now see the option to show search box

Conclusion

Hopefully now we’ve fixed the problem of your Windows 10 search bar missing. If you’re still not able to see it leave a comment below or contact me via email and I’ll try to help. Now that you do have your search box back I’d love to hear what you like to use it for. I like to use it to quickly access computer settings I want to change. Just typing in the setting makes it so much faster to get to the menu or window I need. I love efficiency! 🙂 What do you use the search box for? Leave a comment below.