The Start Menu is a central part of the Windows experience, giving you quick access to your apps and settings. If the default layout in Windows 11 doesn’t quite match your preferences, there are ways to customize it to better fit your needs.

By default, Windows 11’s Start Menu is split equally between pinned and recommended apps. Whether you’d prefer additional room for your pins or more recommendations, you can easily change the layout. Head over to Settings (press Windows+i) > Personalization > Start, then select your preferred layout.

If you don’t know what pins and recommendations in Windows 11 are, let’s quickly go over them. Pins are the apps and shortcuts that Microsoft includes (you can add more manually). Recommendations are a mix of recently opened files, recently installed apps, and suggested content by Microsoft.

Unfortunately, if you’d prefer to remove the Recommended section entirely, that’s not currently possible in the latest version of Windows 11. However, the latest Windows Insider Build has a redesigned Start Menu that allows you to disable both pins and recommendations completely, leaving you with just a regular old list of shortcuts and installed apps. Microsoft could include this change in a future official Windows update.

As you can probably tell by now, the Recommended section in the Start Menu is weird. Fortunately, you can make it less weird by tweaking what appears under the section. Go to Settings > Personalization > Start.