Top PC Tricks to Make Navigating Your Computer Easier

Modern PCs are a marvel of engineering and technological innovation. And Windows 11’s slew of shortcuts and tricks make navigating them and doing things easier than ever before. Whether you’re working or just searching online for a casino win eligible for instant withdrawal, the tricks below will increase your productivity so that you can spend less time behind a screen and more time enjoying life.

Snap Layouts

Windows 11 has an incredibly useful feature called snap layouts. These allow you to snap windows to pre-set destinations on your screen and can help make working across multiple applications simpler.

There are three methods for utilizing snap layouts. The first is by pressing the Windows key and Z key together on your keyboard. Doing so will open Snap Assist, which provides recommendations on how to snap your open windows or allows you to choose which window you want placed in various areas of your screen.

The second method is to drag a window by its title bar to the top centre of the screen. This will open a similar Snap Assist popup onto which you can drag your window before selecting where other windows should snap. Thirdly, Snap Assist can also be accessed by hovering your mouse button on an open window’s maximise/restore icon at the top right of the window.

Virtual Desktops/Task View

Virtual desktops allow you to open multiple desktops with different applications on each one. This is particularly useful if you have specific private use, work, or gaming applications. These are also helpful in ensuring you stay organised when working on multiple projects.

Press the Win, Ctrl, and D keys together to open a new virtual desktop. You can open as many as you like at one time, although it is recommended that you don’t open more if you notice your PC’s performance begins to dip.

To navigate between virtual desktops, press Win, Ctrl, and your keyboard’s left or right arrow.

Pressing the Win and Tab keys together opens your Task View, where you can quickly see what windows you have open and jump between them. You can also see all your current virtual desktops, navigate to them, or close them if you no longer need them.

Shake to Minimize

If you’ve got multiple windows open and would like to minimise all of them except the one you’re working in, you can use Shake to Minimize to achieve this quickly. All that is needed is to click and hold on your current window’s title bar and shake it. This will minimise all other windows to your taskbar.

Should you want all your windows back where you had them, you can shake your current window again to restore all minimised ones.

Aero Peek

Present in all versions of Windows since the release of Windows 7 in 2009, Aero Peek lets you preview all open windows using the taskbar. To activate the feature, hover your mouse over the window’s icon you are looking for.

Doing this will bring up a preview of the window (or windows if you have more than one open for a specific application). From here, you can click on any preview to maximise it and bring it to the forefront of your screen.

Switch Apps

Holding down the Alt key and pressing Tab lets you see a quick peek of all your open windows. Each time you press Tab, the next open window is selected. If you release Alt, the currently selected window is brought to the front, allowing you to switch between apps and windows quickly.

If you’d like to close any window, you can also use this shortcut. After holding Alt and pressing Tab to select the window, press Delete on your keyboard to instantly close it.

Minimise/Maximise/Restore

If there’s an open window you’d like to minimise, press Win and your down arrow. This will move the application from full screen to windowed mode or minimise it to your taskbar. To maximise it to full screen or restore it from your taskbar, do the reverse by pressing Win and the up arrow.

View Clipboard History

If you’ve copied multiple items and are looking for something you copied earlier, you can quickly bring up your clipboard history. To do this, press the Win and V keys on your keyboard. This will open your clipboard and allow you to see your entire history, pin certain items you’d like stored on your clipboard, or delete items you no longer need.

It should be noted that this will only work if you’ve enabled clipboard history on your PC. To do this, open your clipboard using Win and V, then select ‘enable’ when given the prompt.

Screenshot and Print Screen

You may find it necessary from time to time to screenshot what you’re working on and send it to somebody else. There are three ways to achieve this.

The first is to press the Print Screen button on your keyboard. This will take a snapshot of your entire screen, including your taskbar. If you’re using multiple monitors, it will also capture all of them.

If you want to save your print screen immediately, press Win and Print Screen. This will automatically save the snapshot to your Pictures folder so that you don’t lose it.

Press Alt and Print Screen to capture a snapshot of only the window you’re currently working in. This will exclude items like your taskbar and any other windows, even if you have multiple open using Snap Assist.

Finally, to access the Snipping Tool, which allows you to choose what section of your screen you’d like a screenshot of, press Win, Shift, and S. This will immediately change your cursor into a snipping tool that you can drag out over the section of the screen you’d like to take a snapshot of.