6 Hidden Windows 11 Features Every User Should Know About By Now

With every update and upgrade, Windows keeps adding nifty features that improve the user experience. Windows 11 alone comes with a bunch of features designed not only to boost productivity but also to be helpful for those with different needs. There's the Focus assist for distractionless work sessions, the Snipping tool for recording specific parts of the display or taking a screenshot, and the Visual notifications for alerting hearing-impaired users, to name a few.

However, on top of the most frequently used Windows 11 features, there lies a treasure trove of lesser-known gems — hidden functionalities you're probably still missing out on but can enhance how you navigate, manage, and use your digital space. These include shake to minimize, natural voices for the Windows Narrator, clipboard history, Game Bar, built-in troubleshooters, and voice typing. We'll go through what each of these do and how to use them to their full potential.

If you didn't already know, Windows 11 includes a Narrator that reads and interacts with whatever you have displayed on your computer. This accessibility feature can come in handy for visually impaired users and in situations when you prefer to listen instead of read the content on, say, an email, document, or blog post. By default, the Narrator uses a robotic voice. However, you can switch it up to sound more human-like. Here's how to set it up:

1. Open the Narrator settings by going to the Settings app and navigating to Accessibility > Narrator. Alternatively, press the Windows 11 keyboard shortcut Win + Ctrl + N.
2. Under Narrator's voice, find Add natural voices.
3. Hit the Add button.
4. If you want to change the language, click on Choose a different language and pick your preferred one from the list. As of this writing, currently available options include Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese. After selecting your language, hit Next.
5. Scroll through the list of voices and click on your favorite. You can see options for male and female voices, as well as the language version (i.e., Spanish (Mexico) and Spanish (Spain) versions).
6. Click on Install to download the voice.
7. (Optional) Download the other natural voices you wish to use.
8. Back on the Narrator settings page, go to Choose a voice.
9. Expand the options.
10. Select your preferred natural voice from the list. The natural voices are labeled as such to make it easy to tell them apart from the robotic ones.
11. Turn on the Narrator to test out the voice.

The Game Bar is an overlayed toolbar featuring utilities gamers typically use. It comes complete with the following widgets:

• Capture for recording the screen or taking a screenshot.
• Audio is used to control the volume of individual apps and select the audio output and input devices.
• Performance displays computer stats like CPU, GPU, VRAM, RAM, and FPS.
• Resources show a list of your active apps and the impact they have on your computer resources (high or low).
• Gallery displays the screen recordings and screenshots you took using Game Bar.
• Use Xbox Social to chat with your Xbox friends.
• Xbox Achievement keeps track of the achievements you acquired from your Xbox games.
• Looking for Group for finding Xbox players to join you in your game.

All of the widgets, except for the Xbox-related ones, can be used without any additional setup. For the Xbox-related widgets, you first need to sign in to the Xbox app on your computer to enable them. Apart from the built-in widgets, Game Bar lets you install and use third-party ones, too. Just go to the Widget Store and download your favorite widgets. Some of the available Game Bar widgets include Spotify, Game Bar Calculator, and Microsoft Teams Play Together.

To show the Game Bar, simply press Win + G. Customize the widgets displayed by clicking on the Widget Menu icon on the right of the main toolbar and marking the widgets you want to show up on the screen. You can also rearrange and resize the widgets.

Typing with your keyboard is all fun and games until you're faced with a very long document, and it quickly becomes a boring chore you prefer to skip out on. Lucky for you, Windows offers a quicker and more convenient way to type on your computer: using your voice. Driven by Azure Speech services, the Windows speech dictation feature converts spoken words to text, so you can write reports, emails, and other documents all hands-free. Voice typing supports over 40 languages, including Thai, Irish, Czech, and Bulgarian.

Here's how to use voice typing on Windows 11:

1. Make sure you're connected to the internet and have a working mic.
2. Place your cursor in a text box, either in a document, notepad, search bar, or what have you.
3. Press Win + H to turn on voice typing.
4. Start dictating.
5. To delete a word or phrase, say, "Erase that" or "Delete that."
6. To pause the speech dictation, say "Pause voice typing," "Pause dictation," or "Pause voice mode."
7. To stop the speech dictation entirely, say, "Stop listening," "Stop dictation," or "Stop voice typing."

If you want to use a different language, here's how:

1. Go to Settings > Time & language > Language & region.
2. Click on "Add a language" next to "Preferred languages."
3. Select your language from the list. Make sure it supports speech recognition.
4. Hit Next to download it.
5. Go to your taskbar.
6. Click on ENG and switch to your preferred language. You can now use this new language for dictation.