How to Personalize Your Windows 11 Experience
To personalize Windows 11, go to Settings > Personalization. From there you can change your wallpaper, colour scheme, themes, lock screen, Start menu layout, and taskbar settings all in one place. Most changes apply instantly with no restart needed.
This guide covers every personalization option worth knowing about, from the obvious ones like wallpapers and dark mode to the less obvious ones like clipboard history and virtual desktop wallpapers.
In this post
Wallpaper and Background
Right-click the desktop and select “Personalise,” or go to Settings > Personalization > Background. You have three options: Picture (a single image), Solid colour, or Slideshow (rotates through a folder of images).
To set a custom image: Select “Picture,” then click “Browse photos” and navigate to the image file on your PC. Windows supports JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, and HEIC formats.
To set a slideshow: Select “Slideshow,” click “Browse” to choose a folder, then set how often Windows changes the image. Options range from 1 minute to 1 day. You can also set it to shuffle the order and choose whether the slideshow runs on battery power.
Fit options: For each wallpaper you can choose how it fills the screen: Fill, Fit, Stretch, Tile, Centre, or Span (spreads one image across multiple monitors). Fill is the default and works well for most images.
| Practical tip: If you use multiple monitors, right-click the desktop on each monitor individually to set a different wallpaper per display. Windows 11 supports a different image on each screen without any third-party software. |
Dark Mode and Colour Accent
Go to Settings > Personalization > Colours. The mode selector lets you choose Light, Dark, or Custom. Custom lets you set the Windows mode and the app mode independently, so you can have dark system elements with light apps, or vice versa.
Accent colour: Scroll down to “Accent colour.” You can let Windows automatically pick a colour from your current wallpaper, or choose manually from the colour grid. Accent colours appear on Start menu tiles, taskbar highlights, and some app elements.
Show accent colour on Start and taskbar: Toggle this on if you want your chosen accent colour to tint the taskbar and Start menu. With it off, the taskbar stays neutral dark or light depending on your mode. This is off by default in Dark mode.
Title bars and window borders: A separate toggle controls whether accent colour applies to app window title bars. Turn it on if you want coloured window chrome throughout the system.
| Our take: Dark mode with an automatically matched accent colour is the cleanest combination for most people. It keeps the UI consistent with whatever wallpaper you have without clashing. |
Themes
A theme bundles your wallpaper, colours, sounds, and cursor into a single saved preset. Go to Settings > Personalization > Themes. Windows ships with a handful of built-in themes, and you can download more from the Microsoft Store.
To save your current setup as a theme: Scroll down and click “Save theme.” Give it a name. Your current wallpaper, colour, and sound settings are saved together. You can switch back to it any time by clicking it in the themes list.
To get more themes: Click “Browse themes” in the Themes section. This opens the Microsoft Store themes section. Most are free. Click a theme, click Get, and it installs and applies automatically.
Sounds: Within Themes, click “Sounds” to open the legacy Sound control panel. You can change the Windows notification sounds here, or select “No Sounds” if you want a quieter system.
Lock Screen
Go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen. You can set the lock screen background to Windows Spotlight (rotating images from Microsoft), Picture, or Slideshow.
Windows Spotlight: This pulls in daily high-quality photography from Microsoft and displays it on your lock screen. The images change daily. If you like a particular image, you can right-click on the lock screen to access options, though there is no built-in way to save Spotlight images directly.
Lock screen apps: You can add apps that display status info on the lock screen, such as your calendar, weather, or mail. Click “Lock screen app” under the background setting to choose which app shows detailed status, and up to six apps that show a quick status icon.
Show the lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen: A toggle at the bottom of the Lock screen settings page. Turn it off if you prefer a plain background on the sign-in screen rather than carrying the lock screen image through.
Start Menu Layout
Go to Settings > Personalization > Start. The options here control what appears in the Start menu and how it is laid out.
Show recently added apps: Toggles a “Recently added” section at the top of your app list.
Show most used apps: Surfaces your most frequently opened apps near the top of the list.
Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists, and File Explorer: Controls whether recent files appear in jump lists when you right-click taskbar icons.
Folders: Click “Folders” at the bottom of the Start settings page to choose which folders appear next to the power button in Start. You can add Settings, File Explorer, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, Network, and Personal folder.
Pinned apps: Right-click any app in the Start menu to pin, unpin, or move it. Drag pinned apps to reorder them. Right-click a pinned app and select “Move to top” to bring it to the front of the pinned grid.
| Practical tip: The default Start layout has more recommendations than most people need. Go to Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more” to clean it up. |
Taskbar Customisation
Go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar. From here you control what appears in the taskbar, where it is positioned, and how it behaves.
Taskbar items: Toggle the Search bar, Task View button, Widgets button, and Chat icon on or off. If you do not use the Widgets panel or Teams Chat, turning those off declutters the taskbar noticeably.
System tray icons: Under “System tray icons,” toggle which icons show permanently in the corner of the taskbar. The overflow menu hides anything you do not surface here.
Taskbar behaviours: Click “Taskbar behaviours” to access options including taskbar alignment (Left or Centre), auto-hide, showing badges on taskbar apps, showing the taskbar on all displays, and choosing which display shows the taskbar when using multiple monitors.
One limitation worth knowing: in Windows 11 you cannot move the taskbar to the top or sides of the screen through Settings. It is fixed to the bottom. Third-party tools like StartAllBack can restore this, but there is no built-in option.
Fonts
Go to Settings > Personalization > Fonts. This shows all fonts installed on your system and lets you drag and drop new font files to install them.
To install a new font: download a font file in TTF, OTF, or WOFF format, then drag it into the Fonts settings page or right-click the file and select “Install.” Fonts become available immediately in all apps without restarting.
You can also browse and install fonts from the Microsoft Store by clicking “Get more fonts in Microsoft Store” at the top of the Fonts settings page.
Virtual Desktop Wallpapers
Windows 11 lets you set a different wallpaper on each virtual desktop, which makes switching between work and personal desktops visually distinct at a glance.
How to set it up: Create virtual desktops by pressing Windows + Ctrl + D. Switch to each desktop with Windows + Ctrl + Left/Right. On each desktop, right-click the desktop surface and select “Personalise.” The Background settings that open apply only to that virtual desktop.
This is one of the more genuinely useful hidden Windows 11 features that most people never discover. A blue-tinted wallpaper for work and a warmer one for personal use makes accidental context switches much less likely.
Device Usage Settings
Go to Settings > Personalization > Device usage. This is a less obvious section that tells Windows how you primarily use your PC: Gaming, Family, Creativity, School, Entertainment, or Business.
Selecting one or more options adjusts what Microsoft recommends to you in the Start menu, tips, and the Microsoft Store. It does not change any functional settings, just the recommendation algorithm. If you do not want Microsoft tailoring suggestions, leave all options off.
FAQs
How do I get Windows 11 to look like Windows 10?
You cannot replicate the Windows 10 look exactly through built-in settings. The main differences are the centred taskbar and the Start menu layout. You can move the taskbar icons back to the left under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviours > Taskbar alignment: Left. For the Start menu, third-party tools like StartAllBack restore a more Windows 10-style layout.
Can I change the Windows 11 font system-wide?
Not through built-in settings. Windows 11 removed the option to set a custom system font that was available in older versions. Third-party tools can do this, but it is not officially supported and can cause display issues in some apps.
How do I make my taskbar smaller?
Windows 11 does not have a built-in taskbar size option. The taskbar height is fixed. Third-party tools like StartAllBack add this functionality. You can partially reduce visual clutter by turning off Widgets, Task View, and Chat icons in taskbar settings.
Does personalizing Windows 11 affect performance?
Minimal effects for most changes. Wallpaper slideshows on short intervals (1 minute) use slightly more resources than a static image, but the difference is negligible on any reasonably modern PC. Transparency effects can have a minor impact on older hardware; turn them off under Settings > Personalization > Colours > Transparency effects.
How do I reset Windows 11 personalization to default?
Go to Settings > Personalization > Themes and click the “Windows (light)” or “Windows (dark)” built-in theme. This restores the default wallpaper, colours, and sounds. It does not reset taskbar layout or Start menu pins.
