Windows 11 Start Menu is getting a new layout to list your apps

Microsoft loves to tinker with the Start Menu, but most of the changes that it made have been rather controversial. Now, it appears the Windows 11 Start Menu will categorize your apps in tiles.

Wait, Windows 11 already supports folders in the Start Menu. So, how is this new? Well, no, the upcoming change is not related to the Start Menu’s home page.Instead, it changes the appearance of the “All apps” screen.

This is what the All apps section looks like today, it is kind of clunky, because it lists all your apps in alphabetical order, and you have to scroll down a list to get to a specific app. There is no keyboard shortcut to jump down the list quickly, if you type something like the first letter of an app, it simply inputs the text in the Search Bar. That said, finding an app via Search is the fastest way to locate it.

Windows 11’s Start Menu will categorize your apps automatically

Here is a screenshot of the upcoming style, courtesy of Windows Latest. The Start Menu automatically categorizes the apps, by type. This change was spotted by PhantomOcean3 nearly a month ago, you can view a demo of it here. The leaker has also shared a demo of the new style, which you can watch here.

The new layout looks similar to live tiles that were present in the previous version of the operating system, but it is unclear whether these Categories will offer a richer experience, such as an unread badge counts for apps.

The auto-categorization of apps is nice, but the organization could be improved. For example, some apps are placed under a tile called Entertainment, these include Paint, Movies & TV and the Xbox app. But the Music app is placed in its own section, that’s a bit odd. It would be nice if Microsoft allowed users to personalize the selection, similar to how we can customize the folders on the Start Menu’s main page. The new layout offers a slightly better view, but the app labels, i.e. the names of the programs are hidden. One interesting thing about it is that clicking on an icon instantly launches the app, without opening the folder. It does require you to scroll down the page, but it’s still a marked improvement over the current state of the list, but that’s not a very high bar.

Microsoft is also testing a Grid layout for the All Apps page, which will group the apps by the first letter of their name. That’s not particularly useful, as you would still need to scroll down quite a bit.

These changes to the Start Menu are being tested in the latest beta version (Build 22635.4010) of the OS in the Windows Insider Program, the feature is not enabled by default, which seems to suggest that it may not be the final design. The new layout could be available as part of the Windows 11 24H2 Update that is reportedly releasing this Fall.

In my opinion, the Category view sort of looks like the home screen on a mobile device. In fact, this is exactly what the iOS App library looks like.

What do you think about the automatic categorization of apps? Does that make the Start Menu better to use?

Summary