10 Ways to Customize the Windows 10 Start Menu

Microsoft has introduced a lot better Start Menu in Windows 10 after a blunder of Windows 8 and 8.1. What makes it even better is that it is highly customizable. 

So, if you are bored with your regular default Windows 10 Start Menu, here are some tips to customize it and make it more useful, attractive, and less distracting according to your preference.

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Start Menu Layout

Start Menu Windows 10 layout is divided into three parts.

Start Menu Layout
  1. The left-most panel contains the icon of some important shortcuts that include, Power Option, Windows 10 settings, Pictures, Documents, and the account settings. These icons are unlabelled, but hovering on them would provide more details.
  2. In the center section of the Windows 10 Start Menu, you would find all your apps listed. First, the Recently Added, then the most used, and after that, all apps arranged alphabetically.
  3. The right-most panel, the largest section of the Start Menu, contains the colorful tiles, which shows preview from your Photos folder, latest news, emails, date, current weather, and more.

All of these sections could be customized according to users’ preferences.

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Customize Windows 10 Start Menu

Resize the Start Menu

If you feel uncomfortable with the Start Menu’s current size, you can easily resize it according to your comfort. For that, you just have to drag the Start Menu from any of the two open sides or the right-most corner.

Resize Start Menu

Show More Tiles on Start Menu

You can add more tiles on the Windows 10 Start Menu if you currently feel there aren’t much in the right-side panel.

– Go to Settings->Personalization

Personalization Setting

– On the left pane click on Start

Start Setting

– Toggle the “Show more tiles on Start” button to switch it ON.

Show more tiles

Now your tiles column would be expanded from three to four


Pin and Unpin Tiles

You might have noticed that many Windows 10 Star Menu Tiles are unnecessarily pinned. You can easily remove them.

Right-click on the icon which you want to unpin and select the first option Unpin from Start.

Unpin from Start

There might be some apps that you want to pin as tiles for quick access. 

From the middle section of the Start Menu, right-click on the app that you want to pin as a tile and select Pin to Start.

Pin to Start
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Turn Off Live Tile Updates

Sometimes continuously changing tiles can be unsoothing for your eyes and annoy you. You can turn Off the live updates so that it would stop changing. 

Right-click on the Live updating tile. Hover over More option and select Turn Live Tile off

Turn Live Tile off

However, it is good to have live Weather updates, so it can remain unchanged.


Resize Tiles

You can also resize the tiles according to your preference.

Right-click on a tile and hover the resize option. You would have four options: Small, Medium, Wide, and Large. 

Resize Tiles

You can choose any of them accordingly.


Group Tiles in a Folder

If there are some similar types of tiles, such as Microsoft Office applications, you can group them to create a folder.

To create a folder, just drag a tile over another tile. You can further add more tiles to the group. You can also name the folder accordingly.

Group Tiles in a Folder

Change the Start Menu Color

You can set the color of your choice to the Windows 10 Start Menu if you do not like the current color setting.

– Go to Settings->Personalization

– Choose Colors from the left-pane.

Colors Setting

– In Colors, scroll down to “Choose your accent color.” Here you would get the option to choose the accent color from the Windows colors collection. You could also select the option to pick the accent color from the background.

Choose your accent color

– Now scroll down and under Show accent color on the following surfaces, choose Start, taskbar, and action center.

Colors

Use Full Screen Start Menu

Some people might like the tiles and miss the Start Menu of Windows 8. For them, Windows 10 provides an option to use the Full-screen Start Menu.

Go to Settings->Personalization->Start. Scroll down and toggle the button “Use Start Full Screen” button to ON it.

Full Screen Start Menu

This is how the full-screen Start Menu looks like.

Full Screen Start Menu

Customize How your App list Looks on Start Menu

The middle section of the Start Menu consists of the apps that are installed on your system. By default, it shows Recently Added, Most Used, and Alphabetical ordered list of the apps. If you don’t want such a setting and only want to see the full list of your apps, you can disable them.

Head to Settings->Personalization->Start and disable the settings which you don’t want.

How your App list Looks on Start Menu
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Choose Which Folder to Appear on Start Menu

On the left section of the Windows 10 Start Menu, by default, you can access Power Options, Settings, Pictures, Documents, and Account info/settings. However, you can customize it to choose which folders you want there. 

Again navigate to Settings->Personalization->Start

Scroll down to the link Choose which folders appear on Start.

Choose which folders appear on Start

A list would appear in the next windows. Choose the folders that you want on the Start Menu.

Choose which folders appear on Start.

Bottom Line

These are some tweaks you can perform to give your Windows 10 Start Menu a different look. You can use them to provide a fresh look to your Windows 10 system.

Customize Windows 10 Start Menu FAQs

1. How do you set full-screen Start Menu in Windows 10?

For a full-screen Start Menu like Windows 8, head to Start settings and from options choose Use Start full-screen. 

2. How to remove Windows 10 Start Menu tiles?

To remove the tiles from the Windows 10, right-click on each of them one by one and choose Unpin from Start.

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