Google will soon give you additional controls for the Chromebook auto-hide shelf settings. With an upcoming update, Google is adding an option to configure this option separately for tablet and clamshell modes.

Auto-hide Shelf

ChromeOS, like other operating systems of the world, gives you an option to auto-hide the taskbar. However, you cannot configure this behaviour separately for tablet mode and clamshell (laptop) mode.

If you configure the Chromebook to auto-hide the shelf in tablet mode, it will do the same in laptop mode as well. This is changing.

Here is an experimental flag that I spotted today in the Chromium OS Gerrit:

Enable separate shelf auto-hide preferences: Allows for the shelf’s auto-hide preference to be specified separately for clamshell and tablet mode.

It is unsure if this will be an additional toggle on the shelf itself or an option in the Settings app. I am hoping to test this flag in one of the upcoming Canary channel updates.

Stay tuned to see how this feature looks and works on your Chromebook when available.

Source: Chromium Gerrit.