How to Add Widgets to the Windows 11 Desktop and how to use it
If you are one of the lucky users of Windows 11 and besides enjoying the excellent and fast performance and new features of Windows 11, you would like to have a fully functional and attractive panel of your favorite widgets, such as news, by learning how to add devices in Windows 11. , weather, calendar, etc., you are in the right place.
If you care about convenience and want to speed up your work, widgets are far away. Add the devices related to your desired information and services to the widgets panel and customize their features to achieve a great user experience whenever you want to use your Windows 11 system.
In this article, we provide you with all the necessary training to install, add, and use Windows 11 widgets so that you no longer have to search for daily information, such as the weather or your favorite files. Find. Add the desired widget to the widgets panel and get your desired content with one click.
Especially if you look at it from the point of view that Windows 11 is Microsoft’s latest operating system, and the Microsoft team is making every effort to improve this active system from various aspects such as security and performance. Therefore in every new update It adds other features to it, and practical and modern widgets are also a part of these changes.
If you are a fan of Windows tablets and would like to use a Windows server to implement your projects or any other work and pay an affordable price for a powerful and fast server, you can go to the virtual server purchase page. Go to Windows, sell, etc. the desired plan,, and get your virtual server with a ready operating system.
It’s time to learn how to add and use Windows 11 widgets. So, let’s get started:
Table of Contents
- What are the uses of widgets in Windows 11?
- How to add widgets in Windows 11
- How to customize the widget panel
- How to activate/deactivate the widget icon in the taskbar
- Widget Launcher application
What are the Uses of Widgets in Windows 11?
Widgets are small and interactive programs that can show much information, be an interface for using the application, or open the desired files without the need for file explorer. But when these things can be done without widgets, why bother adding widgets to the desktop?
Yes that’s right. But why should you ignore these efforts when Windows 11 is trying to provide you with a new level of speed and convenience?
Although there are many pre-installed widgets such as weather, stock, and news, it is you who should design your Windows 11 widget panel according to your tastes and preferences by adding or removing the widgets you want. To increase the productivity of your work.
In general, widgets are one of the convenience features for Windows 11 users. By using them, you can make your workflow lighter and faster and save your time and energy. Let’s see a view of the Windows 11 widget panel:
You can see that each of the widgets have the status of an information card and it only takes one click to provide the information you need.
The only drawback that Windows 11 widgets have is that they continue to consume system resources even when they are not open. This is why removing or reducing the number of widgets is one of the ways to save Windows 11 system resources.
Our goal in this article is to teach you how to use Windows 11 widgets fully, so if we want to ignore this flaw, there are countless benefits and surprises that you can present to your Windows system by installing the right widgets.
How to add widgets in Windows 11
The widget panel is the most convenient and standard way to access widgets, which can be opened by directly clicking on the widget icon in the taskbar or pressing the Win + W combination button.
After the widget panel opens, click the + button at the top of the panel.
Click on the + sign of the desired widgets and then click on the upper cross sign to close the window.
The widgets you selected will be placed in the panel, and you just need to click on it to open them.
Currently, the following widgets are provided for Windows 11:
Weather – display the weather of the desired location, weather changes based on local conditions, weather forecasts, and severe weather warnings.
Watchlist – Display information and changes related to stocks
Traffic – display information about the traffic of the desired location
Gaming – providing up-to-date information on gaming
To Do – View the tasks registered by you in Microsoft To Do
Tips – Providing educational tips for using Windows 11
Sports – show sports news
Entertainment – Show news and entertainment information about movies
Family Safety – View the recent activity of members of your Microsoft account group
Outlook Calendar – View events recorded in the calendar
Photos – Show pictures saved in the OneDrive account as a slideshow
Currently, these widgets are the default widgets of Windows 11, and the possibility of adding other widgets and widgets of third-party programs in new Windows 11 updates is very high.
How to customize the widget panel
Although the default mode of the widget panel and widgets is quite functional, it depends on your taste and preferences on how to customize them. In this section, we provide you with the necessary training for customizing widgets in Windows:
How to change widget settings
You can interact with any of the widgets in the widget panel and adjust it to your liking.
Just click on the 3 dots next to the desired widget and select Customize widget. Of course, if you want to change the size of the widget, you can use 3 options: small, medium and large.
Each of these widgets has specific configurations based on their nature and use, which you can access by clicking on Customize widget. For example, news and traffic widgets are location-dependent, and you can change their default location through the settings in this section.
Adjust the news feed.
Just like Google Discover, the news in the news widget can be customized based on your interests and preferences. There are many ways to customize news. The easiest of them is to click on the top 3 points of the desired news and then, if you are interested in it, click on more stories like this option so that from now on, more news related to that topic will be displayed in your news widget.
Or if there is news that does not attract your attention at all and you do not want to see similar news, select Fewer stories like this option. This method is more effective in personalizing your interests.
You have a third way and that is to use the Manage Interests feature. For this, you can select the Manage Interests option, which you can see by clicking on the 3 news points, or click on the profile icon of the widget panel and select the Manage Interests option.
You will see that the My Interest page will open, using which you can check different categories and select your favorite topics. You can even specify news publishers by using the tune your feed option.
Sort widgets
If you like to put the news, to-do or … widgets in the first row so that they are easier to access, all you have to do is hover your mouse over it or, if you are using a touchpad, hover over it. Place a widget and keep touching the touchpad until the pointer icon turns into a hand icon. Then, move the widget to your desired position and leave it there.
Pin or unpin the widget
One of the attractive widget customization options in Windows 11 is that you can pin your desired widget to the top of the panel so that it stays there permanently.
For this, it is enough to:
Open the widget panel by pressing Win + w or clicking on the widget icon in the taskbar.
Click on the 3 dots next to the desired widget and then select the Pin widget option.
To pin the pinned widget, you have to go through exactly the same steps, but this time, instead of the Pin widget, there is an Unpin widget option that you have to select.
How to Remove the Widget from the Panel
To remove the desired widget from the widgets panel, click on the top 3 points of the desired widget and select the Remove Widget option.
How to activate/deactivate the widget icon in the taskbar
Although you can press the Win + w combination button and open the widget panel at any time, but accessing this panel using the widget icon is easier and faster.
This icon is enabled by default and is present in the taskbar, but if you disabled it by accident or for any other reason, you can reactivate it by following the steps below:
Open Settings and click on Personalization.
Then click on Taskbar.
From the Taskbar items section, find the Widgets option and set the status change button to On.
Or if the presence of this icon distracts you, and every time you accidentally hover over it, a page of news, sports, etc., opens when you don’t need to see them at all, you can disable it:
Just go through the above steps and this time set the button to change the state of the widgets to Off.
Widget Launcher application
Although the existence of a separate panel is enough to view and use widgets in Windows 11 if for any reason you want to get more widgets and be able to add your favorite widget to the desktop screen, there are many third-party programs such as There are widget launchers that can make some things easier for you.
This program can be downloaded through the Microsoft Store and you can search for its name in the Microsoft Store and then click on the corresponding install button.
After the download and installation process is completed, you can search for Widget Launcher in the system and run it.
To add the desired widget from the Microsoft Store to the desktop screen, all you have to do is select the desired widget from this program and then click the Launch Widget button.
Now, your desired widget is visible on the desktop screen.
Of course, some widgets, such as weather and RSS Feed are empty at the beginning of installing and running the program, and even if you add them to the desktop, they are empty. These widgets need to specify a source to receive data so that they can provide you with a series of outputs.
For example, RSS Feed needs a series of settings to display your favorite feeds; for this, you just need to move the pointer to the right side of the widget to open its control panel. Then click on the settings icon (wheel).
A field will open to enter the feed link, you must enter the desired URL and click ok. From now on, this widget is supposed to be installed on your desktop like a board of desired feeds.
Of course, if you wish, you can apply the necessary changes to its appearance and performance, such as “run at system startup” using widget settings or Widget Launcher itself.
Conclusion
Windows 11 widgets are one of the great options to increase the speed and productivity of the system. Although only a few widgets are currently supported and offered by Windows 11, these widgets are among the most useful services that will most likely attract your attention. Using the tutorials in this article, you learned how to add widgets in Windows 11, customize the widget panel, and now it’s your turn to get started and start using your customized widget panel.
Thank you for staying with us until the end of the article. We hope that reading this article was useful for you. If you have any questions, requests and need guidance, you can contact us by registering your opinion so that we can answer you as soon as possible.
