I don't want to remove them from visibility. I just want the distance between the icons to be reduced.You should be able to drag and drop them into the hidden folder. I know I have done that with mine.
How do I make them smaller?I don't think you can change the distance but you can make them smaller if you haven't already.
Yeah I said in the OP that small taskbar icons doesn't affect anything (other than the taskbar icons). Thanks for trying though.On your task bar right click on a blank spot. Then click on properties. Under taskbar you will see small Icon buttons. Check the box and hit apply. It will make everything smaller but I just tried it and it doesn't change the space. Not for me anyway.
Since there is so much confusion, I might as well clarify what IcyStorm is talking about. This screenshot shows the difference between the taskbar on my surface 3 and of my old HP heap. (I connected to the HP computer via the remote desktop app, so the top taskbar is on the remote machine and the bottom one is the host.)
View attachment 32323
Notice how much more space there is between the surface's notification area icons. They are all the same icons, but they are taking up extra room.
I'm guessing this has something to do with the surface having a touchscreen and the HP not having one.