How To Customize Windows 10 Start Menu?

Microsoft is doing a lot to add more and more features in Windows 10. There are so many ways to customize Windows 10 from different settings. One of the fancy things you can do is to customize Windows 10 start menu. Since, start menu is the place from where you can access many things in Windows, we will see every possible customization of Windows 10 start menu in this article. We explain how to customize size, pin & unpin apps, changing color, naming groups, full screen mode, adjusting tiles, etc.

Full Screen Mode

In Windows 8/8.1, there was a full screen mode option for the start menu. If you loved that then you can change it in Window 10 too. Go to Windows Search, type in ‘personalization’. Select the option that shows “Themes and related settings” as shown below.

Click on “Start” option from the left sidebar menu and turn on the “Use Start full screen”.

Now, you can see the start menu in full screen mode.

Pin & Unpin Apps to Start Menu Tiles

There are many applications that you need to be in start menu to access frequently. For this purpose, you can always ‘pin and unpin’ applications in start menu. Suppose you use “Photoshop” very much, you can pin it to start. Let’s see how to do this.

Click on the start menu, right click on the application and look for “Pin to Start’ option. Click on it.

You can see the application has been pinned to the start menu tiles. Similarly, you can also unpin the apps from the start menu tiles. Just right click on it again and click on ‘Unpin from Start’ option. You will see, the app is removed now.

Pin & Unpin Apps to Taskbar

You can also pin and unpin apps to the taskbar in the same way from the start menu. Just right click on any application and go to “More > Pin to taskbar” option.

Now, you’ll see it will be on the taskbar. When the app is on the taskbar, again right click and unpin to remove it from the taskbar.

Change Size of the Tiles

You can always change the size of the tiles in the start menu to small or medium size. In order to change the size of the tile, right click on the application and go to “Resize” option. You can see there will be two options – small and medium or sometimes there will be third & fourth also ‘large & wide’. It depends on the application.

Choose one of them and you’ll see the tiles will be resized accordingly.

Movement of Tiles

You don’t need to live with the position of the titles shown in the start menu. It’s easy to drag and drop applications to a certain position in the start menu. Click on the application, hold and simply drag it or move it to the place where you like it.

Release the mouse click and you are done. The position is now set.

Live Tiles

There will be live tiles in your start menu like weather app which shows some real-time data. If you don’t like it, you can always turn them ‘off’. Right click on the app, go to “More > Turn Live Tiles off”.

You’ll see no live data after that.

Naming Groups

To make this even more sophisticated, Windows 10 allows you to name your application groups. Hover the mouse at the top of the group, Click on it. Start typing whatever name you would like to give that group and click on the empty area of the start menu to save the name.

Customize Folders in Start Menu

This allows you add personal folders to the start menu. You can add folders like music, documents, downloads, videos, network, pictures, file explorer etc. as explained above, go to start, search “personalization” and hit enter. Go to “Start” option from the left side menu. Scroll to the bottom and click on “Choose which folders appear on start”.

you will see the list of folders that can be enabled in the start menu. Turn on the options which you like to be on the start menu.

Changing Start Menu Colors

You can also change the color of the start menu in Windows. Go to “Personalization” settings as explained above. From the left hand side menu, click on “Colors” and select the color you would like to add to the start menu. If you want more color options then click on “Custom colors” to see more shades. Select the color you would like to set for start menu and click on “Done” button.

Showing or Hiding Apps from Different Groups

Under “Start” menu section, you’ll see some options like “Show app list in the start menu”, “Show recently added apps”, “Show most used apps”, etc. Turn on or off any of them according to your preference.