How to Resize the Windows 11 Start Menu

Where Is the Start Menu Size Setting?

Go to Settings > Personalization > Start > Start menu size and choose Small, Automatic, or Large. This is a new, dedicated setting — before this update, the Start menu's overall footprint wasn't user-adjustable at all, only the layout of pins within it.

1. Right-click the Start button or an empty area of the taskbar and open Settings.
2. Go to Personalization > Start.
3. Open Start menu size and pick Small, Automatic, or Large.

The menu updates the next time you open it — you don't need to restart or sign out. If you have Start pinned to multiple virtual desktops, the new size applies globally across all of them rather than needing to be set per-desktop.

Small vs Automatic vs Large

Automatic scales the Start menu to your screen resolution rather than using one fixed size for every device.

Choosing Which Sections Appear

Alongside the size dropdown, the same Personalization > Start settings page now lets you toggle the Pinned, Recent, and All sections on or off independently, rather than accepting a fixed combination. If you almost never use the "recently added" row, for example, you can turn it off and let Pinned take up that space instead.

Microsoft also renamed the section that used to be called "Recommended" to "Recent" — the content is the same (your recently opened files and newly installed apps), but the new name more accurately describes what it actually shows, since "Recommended" implied Microsoft was suggesting things rather than simply surfacing your own recent activity. Several users had assumed the old "Recommended" row was some kind of algorithmic or sponsored suggestion feed, when in practice it always just showed recently opened files and apps — the rename mostly clears up that confusion rather than changing any behavior.

Don't See the Size Option Yet?

Like most of this update's UI changes, the Start menu size setting rolls out gradually through Controlled Feature Rollout (CFR) even after you've installed KB5124008. Confirm you're on build 26100.9445 (24H2) or 26200.9445 (25H2) via Settings > System > About, make sure "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available" is switched on in Windows Update settings, and check back in a few days if the dropdown isn't there yet. This is expected behavior, not a sign of a broken install — Microsoft deliberately staggers feature activation to catch issues in a smaller group before switching it on for everyone.

Does Start Menu Size Affect the Taskbar?

No — these are two separate settings on two separate Personalization pages. Start menu size only changes the menu itself when it's open; it has no effect on the taskbar's height or icon size. If you're also trying to shrink the taskbar itself, that's a different setting: Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors > Taskbar size, covered in our guide to moving and resizing the taskbar.

Why This Took So Long to Add

Windows 10 let you resize the Start menu by dragging its top edge, a feature that had existed in some form since Windows 95's early "menu that grows with your pins" behavior. Windows 11 replaced that flexible layout with a fixed-size, centered Start menu when it launched in 2021, and resizing it required either registry edits or third-party Start menu replacements like Open-Shell or StartAllBack. Both worked, but neither was officially supported, and both could break after a major Windows feature update until they were patched to match.

The three-preset approach in KB5124008 — Small, Automatic, Large — isn't a return to free-form dragging, but it covers the vast majority of what people actually wanted: a way to make Start meaningfully smaller on a compact laptop screen, or meaningfully larger on a big monitor, without installing anything outside of Windows itself.

Start Menu Size and High-DPI Displays

If you use a high-resolution display with Windows scaling set above 100% — common on 4K laptops and many external 4K monitors — Automatic is generally the safest starting point, since it factors in both your screen resolution and your current scaling percentage rather than just physical pixel count. If you switch scaling levels afterward (Settings > System > Display > Scale), it's worth reopening the Start menu size setting to confirm it still looks right, since a size that felt right at 100% scaling can look oversized or cramped after changing to 125% or 150%. This is a quick, no-risk check — reopening the Start menu size dropdown and reselecting the same option (or trying the next one up or down) takes a few seconds and never requires a restart, so there's no reason to leave it looking wrong after a scaling change.

Combining Start Menu Size With Taskbar Position

Because this update ships Start menu resizing and taskbar repositioning together, it's worth thinking about them as a pair rather than two unrelated settings. Someone moving the taskbar to a side edge to reclaim vertical space, for instance, often pairs that with a Small Start menu, since the whole point of that combination is maximizing usable screen area on a compact laptop. Conversely, if you moved the taskbar to the top mainly for aesthetic reasons on a large external monitor, a Large Start menu tends to look more proportional and makes better use of the extra pinned-app space than Small or Automatic would.

There's no dependency between the two settings — changing one doesn't affect the other — but testing them together for a day before settling on a final layout is a reasonable way to figure out what actually works for your specific screen and habits, rather than guessing from a list of options.

Frequently Asked Questions