What is Action Center in Windows 10 and How to Use It 1

What is Action Center in Windows 10 and How to Use It

Have you been told to open Action Center on your Windows 10 PC while troubleshooting? And now you’re wondering, ‘What is the Action Center and where is it?’ Do not worry. Action Center is not an intimidating setting that requires professional knowledge to use it. It is a separate panel to make your work easier on a Windows 10 computer. Let’s take a detailed look at what Action Center is and how to use it in Windows 10.

We will cover various questions about Action Center in Windows. These include where the Action Center is, how to open it, how to use and customize the Action Center.

Lets start.

What is Action Center in Windows 10?

Action Center is a window with notifications and shortcuts to various settings in Windows 10. To put it in perspective, it’s like the notification panel on your Android phone, or the notification screen and Control center combination on iPhone and iPad. Have a small idea? Now visualize the same for a PC and you have the Windows 10 Action Center.

When you open the Action Center, the panel slides out from the right edge of the screen. It is divided into two sections – notifications at the top and Quick Action or settings at the bottom.

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Action Center shows notifications from third-party and system apps. It also groups app notifications. Tapping the notification will open the app with the suggested action.

When it comes to setting up shortcuts in the form of Quick Action buttons, tapping a button will enable or disable the function. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Night light, Focus Assist etc. You will find shortcut toggles for You can also navigate directly to this particular setting from the Action Center itself. Also, the shortcuts are customizable. So you can rearrange them or keep only what you need as shown below.

Where is the Action Center on the computer

You will find the Action Center icon in the lower right corner of your computer screen. Look at the far right corner of your taskbar and you’ll see an icon that looks like a chat bubble.

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How to Open Action Center

There are multiple ways to open the Action Center on your computer.

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Method 1: Using the Mouse

To open the Action Center using your mouse, simply click the Action Center icon in the lower right corner of your screen. This will open the Action Center window from the right side.

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Pro Tip: You can also right-click the Action Center icon and select Open Action Center.

How to Enable or Disable the Action Center Icon in Windows 10

If you don’t see the Action Center on your taskbar, it’s likely that its icon is disabled. To enable it, follow these steps:

Stage 1: Open Settings on your computer and go to Personalization. Click on Taskbar from the left sidebar.

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Step 2: Scroll down in taskbar settings and click ‘Turn system icons on or off’.

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Stage 3: Enable the toggle next to Action Center to show the Action Center icon on the taskbar. If you want to hide the icon, turn off the toggle.

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Fly: See other ways to fix if Action Center is not showing in taskbar.

Method 2: Using the Keyboard Shortcut

If you like keyboard shortcuts, use the Windows logo key + A keyboard shortcut to open the Action Center.

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Method 3: Using Gesture on Touchscreen Devices

On touchscreen devices, swipe from the right edge of the screen to the left. You can swipe left from any part of the right edge (bottom, middle or top).

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Fly: Check out 15 tips for using a Windows 10 computer in tablet mode.

Method 4: Using Touchpad Gesture

If your touchpad supports gestures, tap the touchpad with four fingers to open the Action Center. Check out our guide on how to set up and use touchpad gestures in Windows 10.

To change: Can’t use touchpad gestures on your computer? Try these 9 useful ways to fix touchpad gestures not working on Windows 10 computer.

How to Use and Customize the Action Center in Windows 10

You can customize both, as the Action Center consists of notifications and shortcuts for settings. Let’s start with notifications first, then Quick actions or settings.

How to Customize Notifications in Action Center

We’ve broken it down into three parts – disabling notifications, clearing notifications, and hiding the notification count.

Hide or Show Notifications in Action Center

Sometimes while working, you may be annoyed by notification banners. You don’t need to disable Action Center to stop it, just turn off notifications for said apps or enable Focus Assist mode.

To enable or disable apps that should show notifications, open Settings on your computer. Next, select System. Click Notifications & actions from the left sidebar. You will find various settings related to notifications. You can disable notifications completely by turning off the ‘Receive notifications from apps and other senders’ button.

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Fly: You can access this screen by clicking the Manage notifications text at the top of the Action Center pane.

However, if you want to smartly customize the notifications app, just swipe down on the same screen; You will find the ‘Receive notifications from these senders’ section. Click on the app whose notifications you want to customize. Let’s say Chrome.

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In Chrome, you can enable or disable showing notification banners, showing notifications in Action center, playing sound, customizing notification count, and much more. Similarly, you can customize notifications for other apps and hide or show them in the Action Center.

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Clear Notifications in Action Center

Notifications don’t stay in Action Center forever. You can clear all notifications, remove them individually or remove all notifications from an app.

To delete a single notification, hover your mouse over the notification and click the small cross icon.

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To clear all notifications from an app, hover your mouse over the app name in the notification section of the Action Center. Click the cross icon.

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Click the text Clear all notifications to clear notifications from all apps in the Action Center.

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Hide Notification Count

The Action Center icon shows the number of unread notifications. If this bothers you, it can be disabled. To do this, right-click on the Action Center icon and select ‘Don’t show the number of new notifications’.

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How to Customize Quick Actions in the Action Center

It can be covered in two parts as shown below.

Adding, Removing and Rearranging Quick Actions

You can also choose which Quick Action shortcuts appear in the Action Center and their locations. To customize the shortcuts, right-click any shortcut and select Edit quick actions from the menu.

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Fly: If you want to open the shortcut’s main settings page, click Go to settings from the right-click menu.

Click the Add button at the bottom to add more shortcuts to the Action Center. Available shortcuts will appear. Click on the one you want to add and press the Done button or close the Action Center.

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To change the location of any shortcut, hold and drag it to a new location. To remove any shortcut, click the Remove icon above the shortcut. You can re-add shortcuts using the Add button.

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Expand or Collapse Quick Actions

Windows provides two ways to show Quick Actions. You can have all Quick Actions appear in the Action Center or keep only four of them. Click the Collapse text in the Action Center to show only four of them.

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Here’s what the collapsed shortcuts will look like. Click Expand to show all.

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Note: The shortcuts added to the first line will appear when you collapse them. So rearrange the shortcuts so that the shortcuts you want are on the first line.

Bring the Change

Window’s Action Center is about to change in future versions of Windows. The main functionality and operation will mostly remain the same. However, you will see design changes in the new Action Center that ships with Windows 10X or Windows Next.

Next: Running out of storage space on your Windows 10 computer? Use Windows’ Storage Sense to free up space. Learn what is Storage Sense in the next link.

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