Windows 11’s cluttered context menus will be a thing of the past, according to Marcus Ash, vice president of design and research for Windows and devices. Microsoft is “working to make context menus faster (and) simpler by default,” according to the executive.
Windows 11’s context menus have been controversial since the operating system’s launch (and even before considering pre-release versions). Many, including me, find them confusing, inconsistent, and irritating to navigate.
Despite a busy week in which Microsoft announced the Ultra Surface Laptop and the RTX surface spark, Ash found some time to discuss Windows 11 context menus on X.
@TeaAndDates @marchr is working on making context menus faster, simpler by default, and configurable based on what you use most. We will share more about our approach soon.June 3, 2026
We’ve known about Microsoft’s plans to improve context menus for a while. The company discussed a split context menu last year that groups relevant options into categories. For example, image-related options would appear in a split context menu called “Photos.”
Microsoft is also working to improve the performance of context menus as part of its k2 windows initiative.
Bundling options would go a long way toward those efforts. The screenshot shared by X users “Guilherme” takes up the entire height of their screen.
Ash’s promise of configurable context menus is intriguing. There are several items that appear in the context menu that are completely useless to a large number of people. While some may value a shortcut to edit a video in Clipchamp, many would be happier to never see that option appear. It would be even better if Microsoft allowed users to replace that shortcut with their preferred video editor.
I put together an overview of Windows 11 and Office context menus in 2026 – still a mixed bag, not finished yet, but getting better of r/Windows11
It would also be nice to see Microsoft clean up and unify all context menus in Windows 11 and built-in Microsoft apps, but that seems less likely. Because Microsoft supports so many legacy applications and contains so many old components, mismatched context menus are ubiquitous throughout the operating system.
It’s not just the context menus in different parts of Windows 11 that are not aligned, even some apps have different context menus depending on where you right-click.
TO reddit The post by “NobleDiceDream” shows several of the different context menus present in Windows 11.
Let’s hope Ash and Microsoft’s vision of faster, simpler context menus arrives soon. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we can remove the AI actions section in File Explorer too.
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