I want to be able to group app icons on Start menu - Windows 11

[HotCakeX]

for example I want to put PWAs icons in one group, put Photo related app/software icons in another group and so on. Ideally I want to do this by dragging an icon on start menu and dropping it on another icon to form a group - Windows 11 insider

Upvote in feedback hub: https://aka.ms/AAdps2r

[#2]

@HotCakeX 

I get a message saying my account does not have access to this feedback. I guess it's because that's for Insiders only, or it might be accessible only to people in your region. However, I submitted feedback about this too, here: https://aka.ms/AAd4tve 

Please upvote this too.

[#3]

i agree, feels like we went back 10 years.... put that fxxxxxx group apps in start menu....

[#4]

@HotCakeX I agree, not sure how they could not come up with something. I hand quite a few related apps grouped. Very frustrating to have to scroll through all the apps or type in search instead of just windows key and click. Sure I can bundle them all in the start, but why not group.

[#5]

I need this since I have a lot of icon groups for different things like unpinnable programs, containers etc..
I started using the tile feature this year, which helped a lot.
Before I used the program fastmenu (https://www.kunze.co/software/fastmenu/) but this program is quite old now and also sometimes has problems with programs, that need administrator priviledges.

[#6]

Oh yes, win 11 might have some nice improvements under the hood. But the optics??? Oh no, nothing. Having the task bar centered is nice I think but just copied from Apple.
Start menu is just a step way back in history. A total mess, even on a huge screen I just see a bunch of icons, not structured, not sorted. And what is a search bar good for if you are used to check out the icon of the app you just want to use? Oh boy, what a great example for making things worse when you had all the chances making a big move into the right direction.
With Windows 10 we had to burry the hope for gadgets on the desktop already, now in Windows 11 it got even worse. I'm really sad.

[#7]

I totally agree. Microsoft, please put back the Windows 10 grouping. It was so quick to find what I want but now only having 18 icons available at first glance is awful. MS Office alone has 8 so now I'm down to 10 icons left.  Another issue is we can no longer right click icons in the start menu to see recent and pinned post opened items.  I could write a book on all the negative things about this start menu... please fix it...

A couple positive things include shrinking the search bar to an icon (with quick access from Windows key) and the rounded corners (back to Win XP). 

[#8]

Completely agree with this. For me, the way it worked in Windows 10 Start was fine, but more important is the specific function that has been removed: I have several hundred apps, 85 of the ones I use most often, or whose names I can't recall, in 8 groups on my Windows 10 Start Menu (e.g., News, Audio Tools, Graphics tools, Communications, Hardware, etc.). This way, I can quickly find any app by just looking at that group. The apps I use most often have larger icons, the ones I use infrequently have smaller icons, and icons are positioned so those that are related to adjacent to each other, like a mini-brainmap per Group. Perfect visual cue to find what I need in 1-2 seconds.

There is no equivalent in Windows 11. Instead, I can have a tiny number of icons in a grid (no organization), where most are only accessible through All Apps. But if I don't know the name of the app I want to launch, then I can't search for it by typing its name, so I have to browse All Apps and hope I recognize it when I see it. That typically takes me 30-40 seconds to find this way, sometimes longer and I just give up. This means what used to take 1-2 seconds now takes 30-40. Multiply that by a few times a day and Windows 11 is costing me minutes a day, hours a month.

This is BY FAR the single biggest problem I have with Windows 11 -- it cripples me and wastes huge amounts of time.

[#9]

There is actually an option to show a search icon instead of a search box in the Windows 10 taskbar, and the search can be accessed just by typing when the start menu is open in Windows 10, even though there is no search box displayed - so Windows 10 does give you quick access to search from the Windows key as well. So there are absolutely no improvements in the start menu and taskbar in Windows 11 - just fewer options.

[#10]

Ah, I was just trying to find something positive to say.  🙂

For now until Microsoft does something better with the start bar I purchased Start11 which gives me a much improved version of the start menu.  Sad we have to buy a third party just to have basic features that make since.  😞

[#11]

I agree that the disappearance of the start menu app grouping is really unfortunate for all the reasons many have already stated.

The best workaround I have found is putting icons on the desktop and grouping them visually (no group name). Instead of using the Windows key to get the start menu, I now use "Windows-D" to display the desktop. I realize this is very Windows 3.1-ish, but I wanted to avoid adding in some third party solution.

[#12]

I agree...
I want to be able to organize my apps with groups!!!!
Like I do in my other laptop (Windows 10) and in my SmartPhone....
Microsoft, please, just enable the group option and let the user use it!!!!

[#13]

@Fox_Master_One 
Seems like they will finally do that in next update!

[#14]

@HotCakeX 

Please, Microsoft. Implement this feature. So simple and so annoying that it's not supported

[#15]

@asuggestion download new windows update bro, it's active now

[#16]

This is already a thing in windows 11. It came several updates ago. See if you are having problems with windows update as you should of had this feature for a few months now already.

[#17]

@Artax04Cheers!

[#18]

It took me a while to clean up my desktop. I have one or two icons on my desktop now - that's it. The reason it works is because of the grouping design I use in Windows 10. I have utilities, games, editing tools, office, etc as separate groups. It makes finding and starting a program super fast and easy. I will not move to Windows 11 until there is a way of getting grouping working - not folders - groups - without that I may never upgrade. I'm not going back to a screen full of icons and a search - no no no no no no no no no

[#19]

Are you referring to the groups as in the folders linked together with the title bar on top of it and you can move the whole selection of folders added?

If this is what you are talking about it is unfortunately unavailable to do. I did like this feature quite a bit but sadly had to move on. Hopefully it will be re-added soon as it helped a lot with productivity.

[#20]

@rls_stamps, I was a vocal critic of losing the Windows 10 organization option in Start. I would not put Windows 11 on my main computer, because it would cost me hours of lost time every month (see my post above). However, with the addition of folders to Start in Windows 11 22H2, I find it's ALMOST as good. There is 1 added click now vs. Windows 10, to open the folder, but then everything is there in its group, functionally equivalent to Windows 10 (except for no Live Tiles, but that whole system hadn't been properly supported in Windows 10 for years either). On the plus side, because the folders in Windows 11 are closer together than the icon groups in Windows 10, there's less mouse movement saving some of the time lost to the extra click.

You still can't use icon size to indicate anything. I used larger icons in Windows 10 for my most popular apps, and smaller for less-used apps. And you can't structure them to create visual connections between related apps. But you can position them in any order you want, which is close.

Now that I've been using it for a while, I don't mind this structure. I couldn't have moved to Windows 11 without folders in Start (came in fall 2022) and I still miss the other Windows 10 Start menu features, especially Jump lists on pinned apps (now my biggest remaining complaint about Windows 11), but on net, with the other advantages of Windows 11 over 10, Windows 11 is now better for me than 10.