Let you actually customize your right-click menu
Windows 11 reworked many of the fundamental interfaces we use every day, and only a few changes were more controversial: the right-click context menu. It’s difficult to customize, harder to declutter, and changes things we’ve known for decades.
Fortunately, there is an application available that allows you to create completely new elements and functions for the right-click context menu.
Who wanted little buttons?
Windows 11’s new context menu looks cleaner, but it hides several options that I use regularly. The old menu allowed me to find basic actions with one click, and now I have to search for them.
I edited the registry to change how the context menu works, but updates often reset these changes and they are difficult to do correctly. The real problem is not the aesthetic change but the lack of control over what appears in the menu.
How to Recover Old Context Menus in Windows 11
No more weird new context menu!
Windows 11’s right-click context menu has been a bit controversial since its release; Luckily, a third-party program lets you customize it however you want.
Custom context menu allows you to create new entries in the right-click context menu that can access any application on your PC. If you want to create a menu item using FFmpeg, you can do so. If you want to use a PowerShell argument on a file, you can do that too.
In many ways, it’s a bit like having a Batch script built right into your context menu.
How to write a batch script on Windows
If you perform a task repeatedly, writing a simple batch file can save you a lot of time.
Technically, the app says it costs 99 cents, but it’s actually free. You can continue using the trial version forever, but you can also pay 99 cents to support the developer.
In many ways, the custom context menu is better than the context menu that existed in Windows 10.
Even though Windows 10 was easier to customize than Windows 11, you were still stuck with options added by apps. If you wanted to add something, you had to manually edit the registry and write a script.
The custom context menu lets you accomplish just that with almost no technical issues.
When you first launch the custom context menu, you are met with a blank screen and no instructions.
To get started, click on the Add button in the middle of the screen. Once you do that, you’ll get a rather busy screen that allows you to specify how you want the button to look and act.
So, let’s say I wanted to add an option that calls FFmpeg and extracts audio from a video file. There are a few steps:
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Set shortcut name
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Specify which program to call
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Set the parameters that pass to the program
In this case, I’ll pass a command to the command prompt rather than calling FFmpeg directly. You can call a program, but I’ve found that outputting to the terminal via cmd makes it easier to troubleshoot my custom entries if they don’t work.
My final command looked like this:
Running it is as easy as right-clicking a video file.
You are only limited by your creativity
I’ve mainly used the custom context menu to automate command line tools that I use a lot, like FFmpeg, but it’s not really limited to that.
If you want, you can use it to:
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Resize images using your favorite editor
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Convert files between formats without opening an app
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Sort files into predefined folders
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Scan a file with a security tool of your choice
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Rename files using a consistent format
Once you have your menu items set up, the main benefit is speed. The command line isn’t great if you’re used to it, but right-clicking and then selecting a menu item is always it will be faster.
It’s not often that an app adds a feature as useful as this. Windows has always struggled with making the context menu customizable, but this app makes it completely painless.
However, until Microsoft adds it to Windows, I will continue to use this application.
