Microsoft has lastly admitted that Home windows 11’s right-click menu grew to become “cluttered and sluggish,” and it’s rebuilding the expertise with a sooner default format and management over what seems while you right-click a file, which is one thing customers have wished for years.
Apparently, Microsoft made nearly the alternative argument in 2021 once they launched Home windows 11. Again then, the corporate stated the Home windows 10 context menu had develop into too lengthy, poorly organized, and tough to make use of, and introduced the brand new Home windows 11 menu because the repair!
Both method, I’m delighted to see that Microsoft made a U-turn and went again to creating the context menu higher than it ever was. And I say this as a result of this isn’t a plan or a promise. Microsoft has already began rolling the redesigned context menu out to Home windows Insiders in Experimental Construct 26340.9212, launched August 17. Home windows Newest examined the brand new expertise, and we find it irresistible.
Microsoft spent 5 years fixing the Home windows 11 context menu it as soon as known as the answer, however…
Return to Microsoft’s July 19, 2021 weblog put up, Extending the Context Menu and Share Dialog in Windows 11, and the corporate was blunt about what was fallacious with Home windows 10’s menu.
It had grown “in an unregulated atmosphere for 20 years, since Home windows XP,” Microsoft wrote. Widespread instructions like Reduce, Copy, Paste, Delete, and Rename have been removed from the cursor. The menu had develop into exceptionally lengthy. Hardly ever used instructions have been blended in with frequent ones. Open and Open with may find yourself separated. Third-party app instructions had no constant group, and a few extensions have been straight inside Explorer’s course of, which Microsoft stated may damage efficiency and reliability.
5 years in the past, Home windows 11’s “repair” moved frequent actions proper subsequent to the place the menu was invoked, grouped Open and Open with collectively, gave app extensions a extra structured system, and saved “Present extra choices” round as an escape hatch again to the previous Home windows 10 menu for something that hadn’t been ported over but.
After which the issues occurred. A lot of the issues that Microsoft stated concerning the Home windows 10 context menu are actually in a worse type in Home windows 11, and it is usually a lot slower, and that’s an understatement.
As with most points in Home windows 11, Home windows Newest had already been monitoring this downside for nearly two years earlier than Microsoft’s admission. We wrote about the Windows 11 modern context menu falling into the same clutter trap as Windows 10 again in November 2024.
Our June 2026 testing confirmed how extensions like Ask Copilot, Clipchamp, Notepad, Paint, and Photos loaded in after the menu had already opened, inflicting misclicks as a result of the cursor place shifted as new objects loaded beneath it.
Surprisingly, of their August 17 announcement, Microsoft is now describing its Home windows 11 alternative utilizing language that sounds remarkably near what it as soon as stated about Home windows 10:
“Once we launched Home windows 11, we launched a brand new context menu with a modernized design, improved group, and a brand new method to utility extensions.
Over time, although, the menu grew to become cluttered and sluggish, and we acknowledged the necessity to dramatically cut back the time between right-clicking and having a menu that’s totally prepared to make use of.”
Microsoft is admitting that the alternative finally developed the identical issues it was designed to get rid of. All resentment apart, it’s not straightforward to confess such a mistake for an organization as large as Microsoft, and credit score the place it’s due, this isn’t only a promise, however they really mounted the Home windows 11 context menu.
Home windows 11’s new right-click menu is quicker, cleaner, and at last customizable
Microsoft launched Home windows 11 Insider Preview Experimental Construct 26340.9212 on August 17, 2026, based mostly on Home windows 11 26H2, and the discharge notes name out the redesigned File Explorer context menu as a characteristic rolling out steadily, so even if you happen to’re an Insider within the Experimental channel, you could not see the brand new Context menu instantly.
That stated, we’ve bought entry to it, and in my transient testing, I really feel it’s loopy good. It’s quick, clear, and all the pieces that I wished the right-click menu to be. All my testing was executed on a low-spec PC which might barely do any activity with pace, and even then, the context menu feels instantaneous:
The menu is now smaller
The brand new default menu comprises fewer top-level actions, and Microsoft says the aim is chopping muddle whereas preserving generally used instructions inside attain. It’s visibly shorter than the one Home windows 11 initially shipped with.
The discount isn’t beauty both. Every app extension added additional work for the OS, so eradicating them straight improves how briskly the menu seems.
“Customise menu” lastly provides customers management
A brand new “Customise menu” choice, the centerpiece of the entire redesign, now seems on the backside of the right-click menu, and clicking it opens a devoted Settings web page below Personalization > Context menu.
Three areas are price figuring out about:
- Constructed-in Home windows actions like Ship to, Print, Create shortcut, Copy as path, and Rotate picture can every be switched on or off individually.
- App extensions will be proven straight in the principle menu, tucked right into a submenu, or hidden altogether.
- And a separate set of format choices controls how acquainted instructions are displayed.
In our testing, Ship to is off, as Share already exists. Print is off by default, and understandably so since most of us received’t be printing usually today. Rotate picture and Create shortcut are additionally each off by default, however all of those can simply as simply be turned on if you happen to use them usually.
Copy as path is the one menu that got here on, which is smart given how usually builders attain for it. As an alternative of assuming each consumer wants each command obtainable always, Home windows lastly lets every particular person determine for themselves.
App extensions like Notepad, Paint, and Pictures will be chosen individually as an alternative of being dumped into the menu as a bundle, and also you get to decide on whether or not they present up straight within the menu or get added right into a submenu.
Microsoft is bringing again components of the Home windows 10 right-click menu
By default, Home windows 11 places Reduce, Copy, Rename, Share, and Delete right into a compact horizontal icon row alongside the highest of the menu. Now, I’ve gotten used to this, however some customers nonetheless favor the vertical association from Home windows 10.
Now you can do this in Home windows 11. Toggle on “Prepare main actions inline,” and people instructions drop right into a vertical checklist as an alternative, nearer to how Home windows 10 all the time did them, however with the trendy design.
A couple of extra settings spherical this out. “Maintain cloud storage actions in their very own part” stops OneDrive-related instructions from mixing into the final extension checklist.
“Present extra choices” retains the legacy context menu reachable for anybody who needs it, since not each utility has adopted Home windows 11’s newer context-menu extension mannequin. Older instruments like 7-Zip nonetheless depend upon the legacy menu. Microsoft isn’t breaking compatibility simply to make the trendy menu look cleaner, and I recognize it.
And “Transfer Properties to the underside of the context menu” does precisely what it seems like, as an alternative of leaving Properties wherever it occurs to land by default.
All this thought of, that is what I all the time wished from the Context menu, and the customization half makes me like this greater than Home windows 10’s model.
Every thing concerning the File Explorer is being mounted
The brand new context menu is a part of Microsoft’s larger push to repair the File Explorer high quality. The corporate has since labored on freezes, hangs, navigation, renaming, the Deal with Bar, and the way file sizes get displayed, persevering with work that began again in March 2026 when Microsoft first admitted File Explorer had been slower than its Windows 10 counterpart for years.
5 years in the past, Microsoft thought they’d solved the Home windows context menu. 5 years later, they’ve successfully admitted the alternative grew to become extra of the issue. Happily, this time Microsoft is giving us management over what the menu does, whereas additionally fixing the efficiency issues.
The brand new right-click menu is at present rolling out to Home windows Insiders in Experimental Construct 26340.9212, and Microsoft says Insider suggestions will hold shaping it. Because the characteristic remains to be in energetic testing, common customers want to attend a bit extra for the brand new context menu to come back to their PCs.
