Show/Hide the console window of a C# console application

user_33225 0
Viewed 268083

I googled around for information on how to hide one’s own console window. Amazingly, the only solutions I could find were hacky solutions that involved FindWindow() to find the console window by its title. I dug a bit deeper into the Windows API and found that there is a much better and easier way, so I wanted to post it here for others to find.

How do you hide (and show) the console window associated with my own C# console application?

console-application console c#
9 Answers

"Just to hide" you can:

Change the output type from Console Application to Windows Application,

And Instead of Console.Readline/key you can use new ManualResetEvent(false).WaitOne() at the end to keep the app running.

user_71245430

Following from Timwi's answer, I've created a helper class to wrap the needed code:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
static class ConsoleExtension {
    const int SW_HIDE = 0;
    const int SW_SHOW = 5;
    readonly static IntPtr handle = GetConsoleWindow();
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")] static extern IntPtr GetConsoleWindow();
    [DllImport("user32.dll")] static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd,int nCmdShow);

    public static void Hide() {
        ShowWindow(handle,SW_HIDE); //hide the console
    }
    public static void Show() {
        ShowWindow(handle,SW_SHOW); //show the console
    }
}
user_114153040
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