Hiding/disabling system-tray update notifier when there are no updates

I'm using LXQt in Lubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa.

I want to reduce clutter on my system tray, and specifically, the update manager/notifier icon. I would like it to only be visible when there actually are any updates to be installed, and not just sit there taking up space.

Is this possible?

If not - how do I just remove it? I can't find where to configure what's loaded into the system tray.

Solution 1:

Bump! You can right click on the panel where your tool tray is located and select Manage Widgets. Then select the status notifier plugin and click the minus (-) sign to disable it. Note that when I did this it also disabled my ethernet notification and a handy tray icon for Qlipper which was saving a memory of strings saved to the clip board.

Update: After reboot, Qlipper tray icon, and ethernet notification may come back crashing the panel. A second restart will bring them back with another notification icon, informing that the panel crashed unexpectedly. It seems to work fine after that. Clearing that crash notification removes the icon, like a good little widget.

So in the end, the above procedure followed by two restarts removed only the two offending update and live patch permanent notification icons in my Lubuntu system (Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS)