A new Customize menu button finally lets you trim the clutter. Here's how to get it, what every switch does, and the setup we'd pick.
Windows 11 finally lets you decide what appears when you right-click a file. A new Customize menu entry at the bottom of the File Explorer menu opens a Settings page where you can switch commands like Print, Send to and Copy as path on or off, and decide which app extras, such as Copilot or Clipchamp, show up at all.
It comes with KB5127936, an optional update released on October 28 for Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 26H2. Microsoft is enabling it in stages, so turn on the setting that gets updates as soon as they're available and check again after a restart.
Here is how to customize the right-click menu in Windows 11: install the October preview update (KB5127936), right-click any file in File Explorer, click Customize menu at the very bottom, and switch individual commands and app extras on or off. For the first time, Microsoft lets you do this without registry edits or third-party tools.
The catch is timing. Microsoft is switching the new menu on in stages, so plenty of people will install the update and still see the old, crowded menu. Below you’ll find the exact steps, what every toggle on the new settings page does, how to get the menu early if it hasn’t reached you, and the setup that makes Windows 11 feel calm again.
Right now, only PCs running Windows 11 version 25H2 or 26H2 can get the new menu. Microsoft shipped it in KB5127936, an optional non-security update that went out on October 28. It moves 25H2 to build 26200.9818 and 26H2 to build 26300.9818.
If your PC is still on 24H2, you’re out of luck with this one. That version has reached the end of support and isn’t receiving the update. You can check which version you have under Settings > System > About.
Microsoft describes the redesign as faster, simpler, and more customizable. It belongs to a wider push the company calls Windows K2, aimed at fixing everyday complaints about the operating system. Back in August, Microsoft itself conceded that the menu had grown cluttered and sluggish over the years.
The Context menu page is split into three groups. Windows only shows a given item when it makes sense for the file you clicked, so an image gets rotate options and a text file doesn’t.
These are Windows’ own built-in commands. Each one can be switched on or off:
This is where the clutter lived. Installed apps (Copilot, Clipchamp, Paint, Photos, Notepad, OneDrive, phone-sharing tools and more) love to add their own entries. Each app now gets a switch. Turn one on and it sits in the main menu. Leave it off and it goes into an App extensions submenu instead.
There’s also a master switch for that submenu. Turn it off, and any extension you haven’t promoted to the main menu disappears from right-clicks entirely. That’s the cleanest way to get rid of Ask Copilot or Edit with Clipchamp if you never use them. Your list will look different from anyone else’s, because it depends on what you’ve installed.
Our pick for most people: turn on inline actions and Properties at the bottom, keep Print and Copy as path, promote only the one or two app extensions you actually use, and switch off the extensions submenu. The result looks and behaves a lot like Windows 10, with Windows 11’s styling.
The right-click menu is the part of Windows most of us touch dozens of times a day, and since Windows 11 launched it has been a small daily irritation. App extras loaded late, the menu jumped around as they arrived, and you’d often click the wrong item because something shifted under your cursor. Common commands were hidden behind Show more options, a second click that many people never got used to.
The speed fix comes from a simple change: app extensions now load only when you open their submenu, so they can’t slow down the main menu. The customization means you no longer need a registry tweak to bring back the Windows 10 layout, which is how many power users dealt with the problem until now.
One more shortcut still works whatever you choose: hold Shift while you right-click a file or the desktop to open the old full menu directly. That’s your fallback if a niche app’s command seems to have vanished.
The same update also lets you type ~ in the File Explorer address bar to jump to your user folder, and the Folder Options window finally gets dark mode.
Microsoft turns the feature on in waves, so the update alone isn’t enough. Make sure the get-updates-early toggle is on, restart, and check again, or wait for the November 10 update.
Mostly, yes. Turn on inline actions and move Properties to the bottom in the Context menu settings, or hold Shift while right-clicking to open the full legacy menu.
Yes. In the App extensions section, leave Copilot switched off and turn off the extensions submenu, and it won’t appear when you right-click.
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