Various hotkeys are helpful when navigating through Windows, especially when you’re tired of clicking every single stuffs you need on the screen. But have you ever wondered about using the ‘Win’ key on your keyboard as a combination? If yes, here are the keys that can save your time and workflow while possibly looking a little cool to the others as well.
TOP 5 ‘Win + [Key]’ COMBINATIONS:
All of these are what I use the most so I can’t essentially rank them from 1 to 5, but here are the keys.
#1: ‘Win + D’ – HEADING BACK TO DESKTOP
Ever had an experience of using ‘Alt + Tab’ to “hide” some tabs? Well, things got much simpler than hovering up to some “safe” tabs to open instead – just hide them all! It instantly pulls down all tabs and programs(some security apps won’t due to some security reasons) and display the desktop. Not just for “hiding” stuffs, but it’s also useful when you want to arrange some tabs by minimizing all the unnecessary tabs at the moment and by opening only the tabs that you’re using or about to use now.
#2: ‘Win + E’ – OPENS FILE EXPLORER
I remember finding this combo few years ago by accident and I was like “wow, it just saves up so much time for me to open the file explorer”. I can’t even think of how I was clicking on the file explorer each and every single time I needed before. Unless you’re saving all your files on the desktop(not the PC/Laptop itself, but the background) which is generally and highly not recommended, you must also be loving this.
#3: ‘Win + R’ – OPENS ‘RUN’
Just like in the previous posts when we were frequently opening ‘Run’ to literally run some programs or to enter some commands, this saves up some time as well when you’ve been using Windows for a long time and know some commands or some abbreviations of the programs. I can safely assume that some people who were once into programming are still using this frequently.
#4: ‘Win + L’ – LOCKS YOUR COMPUTER INSTANTLY
Are you heading somewhere else to get a cup of coffee or a glass of water, or are you heading to the restroom? I’m sure you don’t want other people to browse and navigate through all your files while you’re away. So to prevent this, you can simply use this hotkey to instantly lock up your PC/Laptop before going somewhere else. If you didn’t set up any passwords by the way, it’s useless anyway. But you already had set it up, right?
#5: ‘Win + Shift + S’ – INSTANTLY OPENS SNIPPING TOOL TO CAPTURE THE SCREEN
Sometimes, you need to take a screenshot but only a small portion of your screen, or somehow your ‘PrtSc’ key doesn’t work due to some programs restricting it or simply because of a bug. In this case, ‘Snipping Tool’ works the best. But you don’t have to type it in Windows Search Bar every time you need it, just like how I did for the past years before knowing this hotkey! Just simply press these keys, head over to the specific portion you want to take a picture of, mark it by dragging your mouse over it, and it’s done. Don’t forget to save it afterwards because it’s not saving automatically unlike how ‘PrtSc’ works. Press ‘Esc’ if you’ve changed your mind and don’t want a screenshot all of a sudden.
OTHER USEFUL ‘Win + [Key]’ COMBOS:
- ‘Win + A’ – Opens ‘Quick Settings’ or ‘Action Center’
- ‘Win + C’ – Opens ‘Microsoft Copilot’
- ‘Win + G’ – Opens ‘Xbox Game Bar’
- ‘Win + I’ – Opens ‘Settings’
- ‘Win + M’ – Minimizes all open windows
- ‘Win + S’ OR ‘Win + Q’ – Opens ‘Search’
- ‘Win + V’ – Opens ‘Clipboard History’ to paste previously copied items
- ‘Win + X’ – Opens the ‘Quick Link’ menu
- ‘Win + Z’ – Opens ‘Snap Layouts’ (great for organizing multiple windows on Windows 11)
- ‘Win + [Arrow Keys]’ – Snaps active windows to the left, right, top, or bottom of the screen
- ‘Win + TAB’ – Opens ‘Desktop Page Manager’
- ‘Win + [.]’ OR ‘Win + [;]’ – Opens the ‘Emoji and Symbol’ panel
Simple hotkeys are what’s making our life a lot simpler and easier. Though it might take some time, it would absolutely make your workflow much smoother once you’re used to it. Therefore, it is worth knowing at least few of these.
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