I remodeled my Home windows 11 Begin Menu into an Android app drawer

When Microsoft debuted the Begin Menu again in 1995, it was a real graphical consumer interface (GUI) revelation. The corporate efficiently crafted a software program setup that was each performant and extremely accessible to the general public, which is not any small feat.

For the reason that launch of Windows 95, the Begin Menu has advanced in a lot of methods, and but, to this very day, its fundamentals stay unchanged: you have got entry to all of your put in applications, a search perform, an influence button, a consumer account shortcut, and a few area to pin continuously accessed apps.

Nonetheless, working techniques have advanced significantly because the days of Home windows 95, and the Begin Menu, for all its glory, has change into one thing of a GUI vestige. Most of us now pin apps on to our PC taskbars, and trying to find apps is easier and extra environment friendly than ever earlier than.

As such, the modern-day Begin Menu on Windows 11 is greatest understood as a form of app shelf, analogous to the app drawer on Android and the App Library on iPadOS. When correctly configured, the Begin Menu can function a superb one-stop-shop for viewing all of your put in apps from a chicken’s eye standpoint.

Microsoft just lately pushed out a Start Menu redesign for Windows 11, and it is a stable improve: this new menu is much much less inflexible than its rapid predecessor, permitting you to take away superfluous UI parts and to streamline its design. Some customers have complained that the brand new menu is simply too cluttered by default, and there is definitely some validity to that argument.

With this all-new Begin Menu, Microsoft is lastly permitting us to bend the interface to go well with our particular person wants. In my case, I’ve gone forward and remodeled the menu into one thing that appears and feels identical to the app drawer discovered on my Pixel 10, and I could not be happier with the tip outcome.

Step 1

Flip off your cell system in Begin

To start out with, you may take away the secondary cell system pane from showing in your Home windows 11 Begin Menu. This panel offers fast entry to your cellphone’s standing, latest photograph, name, and message historical past, and different perks. For as helpful as it may be, it does admittedly muddle up the Begin Menu expertise a bit when activated.

To take away your cell system from the Begin Menu, navigate to Settings > Personalization > Begin > Present cell system in Begin and set the toggle to its off place. Alternatively, if you would like to keep up fast entry to the cell system panel with out it taking over area when you do not want it to, go away the toggle on after which faucet on the small cellphone icon situated on the prime right-hand facet of the Begin Menu (to the fitting of the search bar) to break down and develop the interface as wanted.

Step 2

Disable the Really useful and most used sections

Subsequent, you may take away the Really useful part out of your Begin Menu, which can prevent area, cut back muddle, and doubtlessly pace up efficiency. By default, the Really useful part surfaces just lately put in apps, just lately up to date recordsdata, generally visited web sites, ideas, tips, and extra. Suggestions will be disabled wholesale, as can the checklist of most used apps inside the All part of the menu.

To disable each the Really useful and essentially the most used apps sections from showing in your Begin Menu, navigate to Settings > Personalization > Begin > and toggle off the next:

• Present just lately added apps
• Present really helpful recordsdata in Begin, latest recordsdata in File Explorer, and objects in Leap Lists
• Present suggestions for ideas, shortcuts, new apps, and extra
• Present web sites out of your looking historical past
• Present most used apps

Step 3

Change to Grid View

If we’re really going for the Android app drawer appear and feel, you may wish to change over from the Class View to the Grid View inside your Home windows 11 Begin Menu. It will type all apps in alphabetical order, specified by a grid format that resembles what you’d discover in your typical Android smartphone or pill setup.

To modify to the Grid View format inside your Begin Menu, launch the Begin Menu, faucet or click on on View, after which choose Grid from the drop-down menu that seems on-screen. Home windows will keep in mind your most popular app sorting format throughout reboots, and you’ll at all times change to the Listing or Class View choices at any cut-off date.

Step 4

Take away all app pins

You in all probability have already got your go-to apps pinned to your taskbar, and so there’s little level in cluttering up your Begin Menu with but extra pins. Fortunately, if you happen to take away all pins from the highest of your menu, all the part will disappear. This maximizes the out there actual property for displaying all of your at the moment put in functions as an alternative.

All the pinned apps part inside the Begin Menu will be eliminated by unpinning all functions and folders one after the other. Relying on what number of pins you have got, this course of might take a couple of minutes. To unpin an app inside the Begin Menu, merely proper click on or lengthy press on the app, after which faucet or click on on Unpin from Begin.