Quick answer: The highest-impact Windows 11 tips and tricks are the unglamorous ones: trimming startup apps, scheduling Storage Sense, learning five or six keyboard shortcuts, and switching off the privacy toggles Microsoft buries in Settings. This field guide collects 40 of them, grouped by the problem they solve — speed, storage, everyday shortcuts, privacy and hidden features — each with the exact click path and the reason it matters.
Every tip below works on current Windows 11 versions as of October 2026, and Microsoft's own Windows support pages cover the rare cases where a setting moves between updates. If you only have ten minutes, do tips 1, 9 and 25 — those three pay off fastest. This page is also the linked guide for our Windows coverage, so check back after major updates.
Slow PC? 8 Windows 11 Speed Tips That Work
Before you blame the hardware, work through these in order — most sluggish PCs are suffering from junk in one of these eight places. For deeper diagnostics, our full guide on how to speed up Windows 11 goes further.
1. Trim your startup apps. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager, click "Startup apps," and disable everything high-impact that isn't your antivirus or cloud sync. This is the single biggest fix for a slow-booting PC, because half the apps you install quietly add themselves to launch without asking.
2. Do a real restart, not a shutdown. Click Start > Power > Restart. Fast Startup keeps parts of the system hibernated through a normal shutdown, so "off and on again" isn't the same as a restart — the restart is what actually clears the glitches. When anything behaves oddly, restart before you troubleshoot anything else.
3. Let Windows Update finish. Open Settings > Windows Update and install everything pending, including the restart cycles. Updates carry performance and driver fixes, and a machine that's several versions behind is often slow for reasons that evaporate after one long update session.
4. Switch the power mode. Go to Settings > System > Power & battery (or Power on desktops) and set Power mode to "Best performance." Balanced mode trades responsiveness to save energy, and the difference is very noticeable on older hardware.
5. Turn off transparency and animations. Open Settings > Accessibility > Visual effects and toggle off both Transparency effects and Animation effects. On integrated-graphics laptops and older desktops, this instantly un-lags window dragging, menu opens and the taskbar.
6. Restart Windows Explorer. In Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), find "Windows Explorer," right-click it and choose Restart. The taskbar, Start menu and desktop all live inside Explorer, so this five-second trick fixes freezes without a full reboot and keeps your open apps running.
7. Uninstall the bloatware. Go to Settings > Apps > Installed apps, sort by size, and remove trialware, duplicate utilities and games you never play. Fewer installed apps means fewer background services, faster malware scans and more disk space — a win in every direction.
8. Find the actual CPU hog. Open Task Manager's Processes tab and sort by CPU, then by Memory. Usually the culprit is a browser with 40 tabs or a sync client stuck in a loop — quit it, then turn off that app's "run in background" permission so it stays retired.
Storage: 6 Ways to Reclaim Disk Space
A nearly full drive makes Windows slow in ways that look like other problems, so aim to keep 15-20 percent of your system drive free. If you want the deep version of this section, our guide to how to free up disk space walks through every method.
9. Turn on Storage Sense. Open Settings > System > Storage > Storage Sense and switch it on. It automatically clears temporary files and empties the Recycle Bin on a schedule you choose, so junk stops accumulating in the first place.
10. Run Cleanup recommendations. Go to Settings > System > Storage > Cleanup recommendations. Windows lists temporary files, unused apps and — the big one — leftovers from previous Windows installations, which regularly weigh in at tens of gigabytes after a major update.
11. Use Disk Cleanup's deeper mode. Search "Disk Cleanup" from Start, pick your C: drive, click "Clean up system files," then check Windows Update Cleanup and Delivery Optimization Files. The legacy tool looks ancient and is still the fastest way to remove post-update leftovers.
12. See what's actually eating your drive. Settings > System > Storage breaks usage into categories — drill into the largest ones instead of guessing. For a true folder-by-folder view, a free scanner like WizTree maps your entire drive in seconds and usually reveals one or two surprise folders.
13. Turn on OneDrive Files On-Demand. Click the OneDrive cloud icon, open Settings > Sync and back up > Advanced settings, and free up space. Files stay listed in File Explorer but only download when you open them — a huge win if your cloud library is bigger than your drive. If you keep bumping into the 5GB free allowance, our Microsoft 365 Family vs Personal comparison covers the plans that include 1TB.
14. Purge your Downloads folder monthly. Open Downloads, sort by date, and delete installers and archives older than a month — anything ending in .exe, .msi or .zip. It's the most common multi-gigabyte junk drawer on any PC, and nobody ever thinks to empty it.
Everyday Windows 11 Tips and Tricks: Screenshots, Clipboard and Focus
These are the daily-driver moves — the ones that pay off every single time you use them. The ten below cover capturing, copying, arranging and concentrating.
15. Screenshot like a pro. Press Win+Shift+S to snip a region, window or full screen; the capture lands on your clipboard and pops open in Snipping Tool for markup. Press Win+PrtScn instead to save the entire screen straight to Pictures > Screenshots.
16. Enable clipboard history. Press Win+V and click "Turn on" once. From then on you get a running list of everything you've copied — text, links, images — that you can re-paste and pin. It's the single shortcut people thank us for most.
17. Open the symbols panel. Press Win+. (the Windows key and period) for the built-in emoji and symbols picker — em dashes, degree signs, arrows and currency symbols without a search-engine detour.
18. Paste as plain text. In supported apps, press Ctrl+Win+V (or Ctrl+Shift+V) to strip fonts, sizes and colors from copied text. It ends the "why does this email have five fonts" problem at the source.
19. Use Snap layouts. Hover the maximize button on any window, or press Win+Z, to drop it into a zone layout; fill the other zones with Win+Arrow keys. Rearranging three windows takes two seconds instead of a dragging session.
20. Separate work and life with virtual desktops. Press Win+Ctrl+D to create a second desktop and Win+Ctrl+Left or Right to switch between them. Keep distraction apps on one desktop and work apps on another, and your brain stops context-switching.
21. Lock your PC in one keystroke. Win+L is the reflex to build every time you step away — faster than signing out, and your session stays exactly where it was. Pair it with Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options > Dynamic lock to auto-lock when your phone's Bluetooth walks out of range.
22. Schedule Night light. Go to Settings > System > Display > Night light and set a sunset-to-sunrise schedule. It warms the screen color in the evening, which is easier on your eyes than manually dropping brightness every night.
23. Unfreeze a black screen in one combo. Press Win+Ctrl+Shift+B to restart the graphics driver with a beep. When the screen locks up but the fans are still running, this beats a hard power-off and can save unsaved work.
24. Let Focus sessions defend your time. Open the Clock app > Focus sessions to start a timed block that silences distractions, or set Settings > System > Notifications > Do not disturb with priority exceptions. Scheduled quiet hours beat willpower every time.
Here are the eight shortcuts from this section worth memorizing first:
| Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|
| Win+V | Clipboard history — re-paste anything you've copied |
| Win+Shift+S | Snip a region, window or full screen |
| Win+Z | Snap layouts — tile the active window |
| Win+Ctrl+D | New virtual desktop |
| Win+H | Voice typing in any text field |
| Win+Ctrl+L | Live captions for any audio |
| Win+Ctrl+Shift+B | Restart the graphics driver |
| Win+L | Lock your PC instantly |
8 Privacy Settings Worth Changing Right Now
Windows 11 ships friendly to advertisers by default. None of these toggles break anything — they just stop the quiet data collection you never agreed to in spirit.
25. Turn off the advertising ID. Go to Settings > Privacy & security > General and switch off "Let apps show me personalized ads." That ID is what links your app usage to an ad profile, and it's the single most invasive default on the page.
26. Uncheck the rest of that General page. Same screen: disable the suggestions in Start and ads in browser suggestions, "show me suggested content in the Settings app," and tailored experiences. Each toggle feeds recommendations and tracking that most people never asked for.
27. Audit app permissions. Under Settings > Privacy & security > App permissions, walk through Location, Camera and Microphone. You'll find apps with access they don't need — revoke them individually, and your mic and camera get meaningfully quieter.
28. Send less diagnostic data. Open Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback, set diagnostic data to the required minimum, and turn off the tailoring options on that page. Microsoft still receives telemetry, just less of it.
29. Clear your activity history. Go to Settings > Privacy & security > Activity history and clear the stored activities, then disable collection if you don't use cross-device resume. Old activity timelines are more nostalgia than utility for most people.
30. Tighten search permissions. Under Settings > Privacy & security > Search permissions, set SafeSearch to your comfort level and switch off cloud content search for work or school accounts you don't actually use on this PC.
31. Keep SmartScreen on. Under Settings > Privacy & security > Windows Security > App & browser control, leave SmartScreen enabled for apps and browser files. A privacy cleanup shouldn't disable the one check that genuinely blocks known phishing sites and malware downloads.
32. Run a Windows Security review. Open the Windows Security app, run a Quick scan, then read Protection history to see what caught what. Built-in Defender is genuinely good now — see how it compares in our roundup of the best free antivirus options before paying for a third-party suite.
8 Hidden Features You'll Actually Use
Microsoft ships these quietly, so most people never find them. All eight are built in — nothing to install.
33. Record your screen with Snipping Tool. Open Snipping Tool and switch to the Record tab, then click New. You get a screen recorder with zero third-party software — perfect for showing a relative how to do something once instead of five times.
34. Type by voice anywhere. Press Win+H in any text field and just talk, punctuation commands included. The dictation engine is scarily accurate for emails and long documents, and it works system-wide, not in one app.
35. Turn on live captions. Press Win+Ctrl+L to caption any audio playing on the PC — meeting recordings, videos, streams — even offline. It's an accessibility feature that doubles as an open-plan-office survival tool.
36. Use tabs in File Explorer. Press Ctrl+T in File Explorer for a new tab and Ctrl+W to close one. It ends the six-window pileup when you're comparing folders, and it was a long time coming.
37. Extract RAR and 7z files natively. On current versions, right-click an archive and choose Extract All — File Explorer now opens the formats that used to require installing a utility. One less app to install on a fresh machine.
38. Copy text out of images. Take a snip with Win+Shift+S, then click "Text actions" in the Snipping Tool toolbar and copy the text it detects. Error messages, menus and photos of whiteboards become selectable, searchable text.
39. Use Cloud download when resetting. Go to Settings > System > Recovery > Reset this PC and choose "Cloud download." It fetches a fresh Windows image instead of trusting local files, which is the better option when you suspect the installation itself is damaged.
40. Unlock God Mode. Create a new folder on your desktop and name it exactly: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} — braces included. Open it and you get every administrative setting in one alphabetical list, the fastest way to find a control you half-remember.
The Bottom Line
You don't need all 40 of these — you need the ten that match your actual problems, and for most people that's tips 1, 9, 15, 16, 19, 25, 27, 31, 32 and 40. Windows 11 rewards the fifteen minutes it takes to set them up: a faster boot, a quieter taskbar, a clipboard that remembers things and a Settings app that stops volunteering your data. Bookmark this guide, work through one group at a time, and check back after each major update — Microsoft keeps moving settings around, and we keep re-verifying the click paths.
