It’s easy to criticize Windows 11 for its various issues, from the amount of bloat and unnecessary features, to some of the intrusive ads it hits us with. But it’s still a huge platform with the largest ecosystem of apps on a desktop, so it’s hard to deny that, broadly, it’s the best option for most people.
Still, just because you have to use Windows, it doesn’t mean you have to use it how Microsoft conceived it out of the box. In fact, I’d argue you shouldn’t. The biggest benefit of being such a huge platform is that there is a never-ending slew of apps that can change up your Windows experience dramatically and make your computer that much better.
8 tips to optimize Windows 11 for productivity and creativity
Table of Contents
Want to work faster? These tips will help
EarTrumpet
Audio control for all your devices
Have you ever had a monitor with speakers connected to your PC at the same time as a headset, or a separate set of speakers? Windows doesn’t make it easy to manage them, because the volume slider in the Quick actions panel only controls one output device at a time, so it becomes frustrating to manage output across different devices. The easiest way to do it is to open the full volume mixer, which takes a couple of extra steps.
That’s where EarTrumpet comes in. This app has been around for a good while, and it restores the full volume mixer where it should be, making it easier to manage audio for all your connected outputs in one place. You can easily move apps between playback devices, and change the volume for each app and the playback device, so you have full control over the experience without any of the frills.
Twinkle Tray
Perfect for multiple monitors
Twinkle Tray is kind of like the EarTrumpet for displays, and while it has a more limited audience, it’s even more useful if you’re working with multiple monitors. Unlike audio, Windows doesn’t just make it harder to manage brightness for multiple monitors — it’s just impossible. Windows offers no control over monitor brightness unless it’s a built-in display like the one on a laptop.
So, if you’re using external monitors, an app like Twinkle Tray is a huge lifesaver. This provides quick controls for brightness for all of your monitors directly in the taskbar, making it easy to adjust your experience without messing with unintuitive nubs on the back of the monitor. You can automate brightness levels based on the time of day, set shortcuts for changing the brightness more easily, and more. One really cool feature is that if you have multiple monitors and they’re different models, you can limit the brightness range on specific monitors so that the brightness levels are more uniform across all your screens.
Twinkle Tray is an amazing app, but there are alternatives like Monitorian or ClickMonitorDDC that are also worth checking out. I just love the more modern UI of Twinkle Tray.
Everything
Please don’t take this literally
Windows Search is not the most reliable search tool out for your PC by a long shot. It can be slow and clunky, and it particularly slows down your searches in the Windows taskbar, making it harder to find the settings you want. That’s why you should replace it with an app called Everything.
This is a search engine for your PC, and it’s an absolutely fantastic one at that. Everything has incredible chops for quickly indexing all the files in your system, and when you start searching, it returns every possible result nearly instantly. It becomes very easy to find any and all files on your PC using this tool, so you don’t have to waste time navigating File Explorer.
The best part is Everything is a very lightweight app, both in terms of size and resource usage, so it’s not going to take a hit on your PC’s performance.
- Individual pricing
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Free
- Platforms
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Windows
OneCommander
File Explorer isn’t good anyway
Much like Windows Search, the built-in File Explorer on Windows 11 is a subpar experience for many reasons. It’s not as fast as it could be, and when it comes to maximizing your productivity, you can definitely do better. This is where a tool like OneCommander comes in. There are plenty of File Explorer replacements out there, but as far as free options go, this is easily my favorite.
OneCommander one-ups File Explorer in a number of ways. The dual-pane navigation makes it far easier to manage your files by seeing two folders side-by-side. Each pane also has its own set of tabs, so you can juggle a lot of files and folders at the same time without a problem. OneCommander also makes it easy to see how old a given file is at a glance thanks to color-coded labels, and it offers advanced file previews, including the ability to see text inside a TXT or BAT file so you don’t need to open them first.
There are also some interesting features like the ability to create notes inside a folder, which you can use to remind you of something you need to do with those files. Another fantastic feature is the ability to create “templates” which essentially means you can save any type of file in a dedicated folder, and you can then clone that file in a new location at any time to create a modified version of it. It’s incredibly useful, and there are still plenty of features I haven’t mentioned.
Start11
Another common point of contention with Windows 11 is the Start menu, which is simply too limited to be useful for a lot of people. Thankfully, solutions also exist for this, and Stardock’s Start11 is arguably the best. I’ve reviewed Start11 v2 here at XDA, and I was personally blown away by how much it enhances the Start menu experience.
First off, you can change the design of the Start menu to any of the seven styles available, which include some designs based on older Windows releases, but also some versions that take the Windows 11 design and elevate it to the nth degree. A personal favorite is the “Windows App style”, which places the full app list next to your pinned Start menu items for easy access.
But that’s just the beginning, because this pinned area of the Start menu is nothing like what Windows 11 offers. You can create folders, groups, tabs, and pages to organize all your apps in any way you want and make them all easily accessible and identifiable. Groups can be color-coded to your liking, and you can even tint the app icons to match, creating a consistent look. Then, you can also add entire folders from File Explorer into the Start menu for quick access to important files. And if you want, you can make these folders browse-able through dropdown lists, so you barely have to open File Explorer at all.
It can be hard to comprehend just how much Start11 can do to the Start menu, but thankfully there’s a free trial you can take for a spin before deciding whether you should spend money on it. If you want Start menu customization that’s free, there’s also a tool called Windhawk that has a ton of modifications for the Start menu and other Windows elements.
Rainmeter
Windows customization taken to the extreme
Customizing Windows takes many forms, but very few of those go as far as Rainmeter can. This is a customization platform for Windows that can completely change the way Windows looks, feels, and acts. It’s a community-driven platform where everyone can create in-depth skins that change the behavior of Windows or add certain features or elements to make it look beautiful.
It’s a very powerful platform, and it’s entirely up to the community and to you how much it can do. A very popular kind of skin is something that adds a clock, audio visualizer, or other visual elements to your desktop to make it more useful and visually appealing at a glance. But skins can be as extreme as Droptop Four, a skin we’ve highlighted in the past to add a macOS-like menu bar to the top of your screen. While replicating macOS exactly would be impossible, Droptop Four does so much that your PC barely feels like Windows. It gives you shortcuts to apps and folders directly from the desktop, it includes dedicated panels for managing volume, Wi-Fi connections, and more, and it just kind of replaces the taskbar (aside from showing your open apps).
Other skins can add widgets to your desktop with all kinds of themes and features. It can be hard to get to grips with Rainmeter because you have to go out and seek these skins yourself, but you’re guaranteed to find something cool out there.
PowerToys
FancyZones is all it takes to make this great
PowerToys is a suite of tools maintained by Microsoft and it’s designed for pwoer users to boost their productivity in a few different ways. There are a ton of fantastic tools within PowerToys that can be helpful for many things. Image Resizer is great for resizing images in bulk, PowerRename is useful for renaming files, and Keyboard Manager can let you create keyboard shortcuts or reassign keys to other functions. That’s just the tip of the iceberg with this app, though.
To me, the biggest draw of PowerToys is FancyZones, a window manager that takes multitasking to the next level, especially if you work with very large monitors. You may know how Snap Layouts in Windows 11 make it easier to have a few apps side by side, but this is a completely different level.
With FancyZones, you can fully customize and design the snapping areas for your app windows so you have just the right layout for your needs. You can split areas horizontally or vertically, and there’s basically no limit to how much you can split your screen. What’s even better is that snapping apps to these areas becomes a lot easier because you just need to hold a specific key on the keyboard and move the app into any of the areas you want. You have very precise control over how it works.
Even if you use just one of the tools in PowerToys, it’s worth it, but there’s a lot to check out here to make it even more worth your while.
Raycast
Absolutely essential
Finally, we have the cream of the crop. Laujnchers are a type of app that completely changes how yo do everything on your computer, and despite its recent launch on Windows, Raycast is already an absolutely phenomenal choice that will boost your poroductivity in so many ways.
The basic functionality of Raycast is that it servers as an instant app launcher. Press the keyboard shorcut of your choicel and the Raycast bar appears instantly with suggested results based on your usage (and yes, they do get more useful over time). From here, you can just type the name of any app on your computer, and with lightning speed, it will show you the best results so you can open apps faster than ever. It also works with system settings, so you can get to anything significantly faster.
But there’s so much more to it. Through the power of extensions, Raycast can do so much more, from serving as a clipboard history that’s much better than the built-in solution in Windows to become a YouTube search and download tool, and even offering some controls for your smart home through Home Assistant. There’s so much that can be done with Raycast and it’s all so fast, I can’t recommend it enough.
Windows can be so much more
Windows 11 is a great operating system, but having tried all of these apps, I can attest to how they can make the experience much better or simply more fun across the board. Whether it’s file management, launching apps, or managing multiple monitors and audio outputs, these apps make your life so much easier in so many ways that you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them. I know I do, so I highly recommend checking all of them out. Outside of Start11, these are all free, so you have nothing to lose. And seriously, try Raycast, it’s amazing.
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