Quick Settings (Action Center) in Windows 11 & 10: Edit Tiles, Fix Missing

The Action Center from Windows 10 became two separate panels in Windows 11. Quick Settings, opened with Windows + A or by clicking the network, volume and battery icons on the taskbar, holds the tiles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, airplane mode, Night light and the rest, plus the brightness and volume sliders. The Notification Center, opened with Windows + N or by clicking the date and time, holds your notifications and the calendar. To change which tiles appear in Quick Settings, open it and click the pencil icon: unpin tiles you never use, drag the rest into order, and click Add for any that are missing. Here is the part that trips most people up: a missing tile is rarely a setting. If Bluetooth, the brightness slider or Night light is gone, Windows has stopped seeing the hardware or driver behind it, and the fix is in Device Manager, not in the Edit menu. This page covers both: customizing the panel, and getting lost tiles back.

Ethan's dad had a ritual every evening: Night light on, volume down, headphones connected, all from the little panel in the corner. One morning after an update, the Bluetooth tile had vanished. He spent ten minutes in the pencil menu looking for it under Add, but it was not there either. At Jake's shop, Jake did not open Quick Settings at all. He opened Device Manager, found the Bluetooth adapter disabled after the update, enabled it, and the tile reappeared by itself. While he was there, he rearranged the panel so the four tiles Ethan's dad actually used sat at the top. That is where this page starts: what Quick Settings and the Notification Center are, how to make the panel yours, every shortcut, and the fixes for tiles and sliders that disappear.

Quick Settings is the fastest way to change the things you change most: connections, sound, screen brightness, battery and a handful of display and accessibility modes. It saves digging through the full Settings app for everyday switches, and once it is arranged the way you use it, most daily adjustments take one click.

Action Center, Quick Settings and Notification Center: what changed

Windows 10 combined two jobs in one panel called the Action Center: notifications at the top, and a grid of "quick action" tiles at the bottom. Windows 11 split them:

• Quick Settings, the panel above the network, volume and battery icons, took the tiles and the sliders.
• Notification Center, the panel above the date and time, took the notifications, the calendar and the Focus controls.

So when an older guide says "open the Action Center", Windows 11 users want Quick Settings for switches and the Notification Center for messages. The keyboard shortcut Windows + A moved with the tiles: on Windows 11 it opens Quick Settings, and Windows + N opens the Notification Center. For everything about notifications themselves, such as turning them off per app, Do Not Disturb and banners, our complete notifications guide covers it. This page focuses on Quick Settings.

How to open Quick Settings and the Notification Center

1. Windows + A opens Quick Settings on Windows 11 (the Action Center on Windows 10).
2. Click the network, volume or battery icon at the right of the taskbar. On Windows 11 they act as one button that opens Quick Settings.
3. Windows + N opens the Notification Center on Windows 11.
4. Click the date and time to open the Notification Center and calendar.
5. On a touchscreen, swipe in from the right edge for notifications.

Pressing the same shortcut again, or Esc, closes the panel. With a keyboard, Tab and the arrow keys move between tiles, Space or Enter toggles a tile, and the right arrow on tiles with a small arrow opens their detail page.

What is in Windows 11 Quick Settings

Quick Settings has three parts. The tiles at the top switch features on and off; tiles with a small arrow open a detail page when you click the arrow, such as the list of Wi-Fi networks or Bluetooth devices. The sliders in the middle set screen brightness and volume; the arrow next to the volume slider lets you pick a different output device, such as headphones or a monitor's speakers. The bottom row shows battery level on laptops, the pencil icon for editing, and a gear that opens the full Settings app.

When music or video plays, media controls appear above the panel, letting you pause or skip without finding the app. On recent Windows 11 versions, the tiles area can hold more tiles than fit on one screen and scrolls between pages, so a long list does not make the panel huge.

The exact list depends on your hardware and Windows version. A desktop PC without wireless will not show Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or airplane mode tiles, and that is expected.

How to add, remove and rearrange Quick Settings tiles

1. Open Quick Settings with Windows + A.
2. Click the pencil icon (Edit quick settings) at the bottom.
3. To remove a tile, click the small pin icon on its corner to unpin it.
4. To rearrange, drag tiles into the order you want. Put your most-used tiles first, so they are always on the first page.
5. To add a tile, click Add and choose from the list of available tiles.
6. Click Done.

Unpinning a tile never turns the feature off; it only removes the shortcut. Bluetooth keeps working with its tile unpinned, and you can still reach it in Settings. If a tile you want is missing from the Add list too, the problem is not the layout. Jump to missing tiles.

A tile is missing from Quick Settings: the real fixes

When a tile disappears and is not in the Add list, Windows has decided the feature is not available. These are the usual reasons, by tile.

Bluetooth tile missing

1. Open Device Manager (Windows + X, then M) and expand Bluetooth. If the adapter shows a down arrow, right-click it and choose Enable device.
2. If Bluetooth is missing from Device Manager entirely, check for a hardware wireless switch or a function key, then install the Bluetooth or wireless driver from your PC maker's support site.
3. Check the Bluetooth Support Service is running: press Windows + R, type services.msc, find it, and set it to Manual or Automatic and start it.

Our guides to Bluetooth missing after an update and pairing devices go further.

Wi-Fi tile missing

The wireless adapter is disabled, its driver failed, or airplane mode turned it off and it did not come back. In Device Manager, expand Network adapters and enable the wireless adapter if it is disabled. If it has a warning icon, reinstall the driver. As a broader reset, Settings > Network & internet > Advanced network settings > Network reset reinstalls network adapters, at the cost of saved Wi-Fi passwords.

Brightness slider missing

On desktop PCs with external monitors, Windows usually cannot control brightness, because the monitor's own buttons do that; the slider is absent by design. On laptops, a missing slider usually means the display driver failed and Windows is using the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. Install the graphics driver from your PC maker or the chip maker. Our brightness guide covers the details.

Night light tile missing or grayed out

Night light depends on the display driver too. A basic display driver, some remote desktop sessions and some external display setups disable it. Update the graphics driver, then check Settings > System > Display > Night light.

Mobile hotspot grayed out

Mobile hotspot needs a connection to share. If the PC is not connected to the internet, or is connected through a type of network that cannot be shared, the tile is grayed out. Connect first, then try again. Our guide to sharing your connection explains the options.

What airplane mode actually turns off

The airplane mode tile switches off every wireless radio at once: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mobile broadband on PCs with a SIM, and on some devices GPS and near-field communication. It is the quickest way to cut all connections, on a flight or when a laptop's battery must last.

What surprises people is that you can turn Wi-Fi or Bluetooth back on while staying in airplane mode. Many airlines allow in-flight Wi-Fi and Bluetooth headphones, so the common sequence is: airplane mode on, then the Wi-Fi tile on, then Bluetooth on. Windows remembers that combination the next time you enable airplane mode.

If airplane mode will not turn off, or the tile is stuck, a hardware wireless switch or function key may be overriding Windows, or a driver may be stuck. Our guide to being stuck in airplane mode walks through the fixes.

Cast and Project: the two display tiles

These two tiles are often confused.

Project (Windows + P) is for screens connected by cable or dock. It chooses between PC screen only, Duplicate (same picture on both), Extend (one big desktop across both) and Second screen only. Presenters usually want Duplicate; people working at a desk usually want Extend.

Cast (Windows + K) sends the screen wirelessly to a TV, projector or wireless display adapter that supports Miracast. Both the PC and the display must support it, and they usually need to be on compatible Wi-Fi. If Cast finds nothing, check that the TV's screen-mirroring mode is on, and that the PC's Wi-Fi is turned on even if it is connected by cable. Some TVs and streaming sticks use other systems that Windows cannot cast to directly; those need their own app.

Share your connection with Mobile hotspot

1. Make sure the PC is connected to the internet, by cable, Wi-Fi or a mobile data SIM.
2. Right-click the Mobile hotspot tile and choose Go to Settings, or open Settings > Network & internet > Mobile hotspot.
3. Choose which connection to share and how (Wi-Fi or Bluetooth).
4. Click Edit to see or change the network name and password.
5. Turn on the hotspot, from Settings or the tile.

Other devices then connect to the PC's network like any Wi-Fi. It is handy in hotel rooms with a single wired connection, or to give a tablet internet through your laptop. Turn it off when finished, because it uses battery and keeps the PC's Wi-Fi busy. Our guide to sharing your connection covers the rest.

The Accessibility tile and Live captions

The Accessibility tile opens a small menu of the most useful accessibility switches without a trip to Settings: Magnifier, color filters, Narrator, mono audio, Live captions and sticky keys, depending on version. It is worth pinning for anyone who uses one of these daily, and for helpers who set up PCs for others, because it makes turning a feature off just as easy as turning it on.

Live captions, on Windows 11, show captions for any audio playing on the PC, including video calls and videos in apps without their own captions. It processes speech on the device, so audio is not sent to the cloud. The first time, Windows downloads the speech files it needs. If you rely on captions or transcription more broadly, our guide to Live Captions, Word Transcribe and Microsoft's speech models compares the options.

Nearby sharing: send files to the PC next to you

Nearby sharing sends files and links directly to another Windows PC close by, over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, with no USB stick, email or cloud upload. It is ideal for moving a photo or document between a laptop and a family member's PC.

1. Turn on the Nearby sharing tile, or open Settings > System > Nearby sharing, on both PCs.
2. Choose My devices only (PCs signed in with the same Microsoft account) or Everyone nearby.
3. In File Explorer, right-click a file, choose Share, and pick the other PC from the list.
4. Accept the incoming file on the other PC. It lands in the Downloads folder by default.

Both PCs need Bluetooth, and transfers are faster when both are on the same Wi-Fi network. Set it back to My devices only, or off, in public places, so strangers cannot send you files.

Energy saver vs power mode: which to use

Two different controls affect battery life, and people often use the wrong one.

Energy saver (the tile) is a temporary mode for stretching battery: it dims the screen a little, limits background activity and pauses some syncing. Turn it on when you are away from a charger and need the battery to last, or set it to come on automatically at a battery level.

Power mode, under Settings > System > Power & battery, decides how hard the processor works all the time: Best power efficiency, Balanced or Best performance, with separate choices for battery and plugged in. Balanced suits most people; Best power efficiency on battery makes a real difference on most laptops without needing Energy saver at all.

A practical setup is Balanced when plugged in, Best power efficiency on battery, and Energy saver set to start at 20 or 30 percent. If your battery drains fast even with those settings, checking battery health is the next step; our guide to checking battery health shows how.

Media controls above Quick Settings

When an app plays music or video, Windows 11 shows media controls above Quick Settings, with the track name, artwork, play and pause, and next and previous buttons. Browsers, Spotify and most media players support it. If several things are playing, arrows let you switch between them. It is the fastest way to pause a video in a background browser tab without hunting for it. If you prefer not to see these controls, some apps and browsers offer a setting to stop sharing media information with Windows; Windows itself shows the controls whenever an app provides them.

Every tile's full settings page

Right-clicking most tiles offers Go to Settings, which opens the full page for that feature. If you prefer typing, these addresses open the same pages from the Run box (Windows + R).

Our guide to opening Settings lists many more of these direct addresses. If an address ever opens the Settings home page instead of the expected page, Microsoft has moved that page in an update; search inside Settings for the feature name instead.

The VPN tile

If you add a VPN connection in Windows, under Settings > Network & internet > VPN, a VPN tile appears in Quick Settings, and its arrow lists your connections for one-click connect and disconnect. This covers VPNs configured in Windows itself, such as many work and school VPNs. Commercial VPN apps usually manage their connection through their own app and tray icon instead, and may not appear in the tile. If a work VPN tile is missing, check that the connection still exists on the VPN settings page, as profile changes pushed by IT can remove and re-add it.

A simple Quick Settings setup for a parent or grandparent

For someone who is not comfortable with computers, a tidy Quick Settings panel removes a lot of confusion. A good setup:

1. Pin only the tiles they need, often Wi-Fi, Bluetooth for hearing aids or headphones, Accessibility, and Night light.
2. Put them in the same order on every PC they use, so habits transfer.
3. Turn on the Night light schedule so they never need to touch that tile.
4. Turn on the Accessibility tile's most useful feature for them, such as Magnifier or larger text, and show them how to switch it off again.
5. Show them Windows + A once, and write it on a sticky note.

Fewer, familiar tiles mean fewer accidental changes and fewer phone calls about the Wi-Fi being "broken" when airplane mode was switched on by mistake.

Five common Quick Settings mistakes

1. Looking for a missing tile in the Add list for ages. If it is not there, it is a driver or hardware issue. Go to Device Manager instead.
2. Leaving airplane mode on by accident. One tap on the tile, often while cleaning a touchscreen or tapping blindly, cuts every connection. If Wi-Fi suddenly "breaks", check the airplane tile first.
3. Turning off Bluetooth to save battery, then wondering why the mouse died. Bluetooth mice, keyboards and hearing aids all depend on that tile.
4. Confusing Energy saver with a broken screen. Energy saver dims the display slightly. A dimmer screen on battery is usually the mode, not a fault.
5. Fighting the brightness slider on a desktop PC. External monitors are adjusted with their own buttons; Windows' slider is for built-in screens.

Quick Settings vs the system tray icons

Quick Settings and the system tray sit side by side and are easy to mix up. Quick Settings belongs to Windows and holds its own switches. The system tray, the small app icons to the left of it, belongs to apps: cloud storage, antivirus, chat apps, graphics utilities and so on. Some of those icons hide behind the small up-arrow, called the overflow menu.

To choose which app icons always show, open Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Other system tray icons and turn icons on or off. To declutter, drag icons from the taskbar into the overflow menu, or out of it to keep them visible. None of this changes Quick Settings, and unpinning a Quick Settings tile does not affect the tray.

The keyboard layout indicator

If you have more than one keyboard layout or language installed, an indicator such as ENG or HIN appears next to Quick Settings, and on Windows 11 a keyboard layout option may appear among the tiles. Clicking it switches layouts, and so does Windows + Space. If you only use one layout and the indicator keeps switching by accident, remove the extra layouts in Settings > Time & language > Language & region; the indicator disappears when only one remains. Accidental layout switches are a common reason letters suddenly type as different characters.

Quick Settings on multiple monitors

With several screens, Quick Settings opens on the monitor whose taskbar you click, and Windows + A opens it on the main display. If taskbars are shown on all displays, under Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors, each one has the system icons on recent Windows 11 versions, so Quick Settings is reachable from whichever screen you are working on. The brightness slider normally controls only the built-in laptop screen; external monitors use their own buttons, unless they support brightness control over the display connection and Windows exposes it.

Quick Settings after Windows updates

Feature updates sometimes change Quick Settings: new tiles appear, layouts are reset, or the design changes, as when recent Windows 11 versions made the tile area scroll between pages. After a big update, open the pencil menu once and check the layout is still the way you like it. If a tile you relied on vanished after an update, check the Add list first; if it is not there, the update probably replaced a driver, and the missing-tile section above applies. Updates are also the usual fix for Quick Settings bugs, so if the panel misbehaves, installing the latest cumulative update is worth doing before anything more drastic.

Quick Settings won't open, or opens empty

1. Restart Windows Explorer. Open Task Manager with Ctrl + Shift + Esc, find Windows Explorer, right-click it and choose Restart. The taskbar and panels reload in a few seconds. This fixes most frozen or blank panels; our guide to restarting Explorer shows each step.
2. Restart the PC, a real restart rather than shutdown and power on.
3. Install pending updates. Quick Settings bugs are usually fixed in cumulative updates.
4. Repair system files. In an administrator Command Prompt, run DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, then sfc /scannow, and restart.
5. Test with another user account. If Quick Settings works for a new account, your profile is damaged; moving to a fresh account is the reliable fix.

Windows 10: edit quick actions in the Action Center

On Windows 10, the tiles live at the bottom of the Action Center.

1. Press Windows + A to open the Action Center.
2. Click Expand above the tiles if only one row is showing.
3. Right-click any tile and choose Edit quick actions, or go to Settings > System > Notifications & actions > Edit your quick actions.
4. Unpin tiles with their pin icon, drag to rearrange, use Add for more, and click Done.

Windows 10 also offers tiles that Windows 11 dropped or moved, such as Tablet mode, Focus assist and Location. The missing-tile fixes above apply in the same way, because the cause is still hardware or drivers.

Getting more from the volume and brightness sliders

The sliders hide a few useful extras.

• Switch audio output. Click the arrow next to the volume slider to choose between speakers, headphones, Bluetooth earbuds and monitor speakers without opening Settings.
• Per-app volume. In the same output page, the volume mixer link, or right-clicking the speaker icon and choosing Open volume mixer, sets volume separately for each app.
• Spatial sound. On supported devices, the output page offers spatial sound options for headphones.
• Brightness with the keyboard. Most laptops have brightness keys on the top row, which move the same slider.
• Scroll to adjust. Hovering over the speaker icon and turning the mouse wheel changes volume without opening the panel on recent Windows 11 versions.

Night light, Energy saver and modes worth a schedule

Several tiles have deeper settings that make them automatic, so you never need to touch the tile.

Night light: right-click its tile and choose Go to Settings. Turn on Schedule night light and choose sunset to sunrise, or set hours. Adjust the strength slider until evening screens feel comfortable.

Energy saver (Battery saver on older versions): under Settings > System > Power & battery > Energy saver, choose to turn it on automatically at a battery level such as 30%.

Do Not Disturb lives in the Notification Center rather than Quick Settings on Windows 11, with automatic rules for presentations, games and set hours under Settings > System > Notifications.

Keyboard shortcuts for the same switches

Many Quick Settings tiles have direct shortcuts, which are faster when your hands are on the keyboard.

• Windows + A: Quick Settings. Windows + N: Notification Center.
• Windows + K: Cast to a wireless display.
• Windows + P: Project to a second screen (extend, duplicate, second screen only).
• Windows + Ctrl + L: Live captions on Windows 11.
• Windows + Ctrl + Enter: Narrator on or off.
• Windows + Plus: Magnifier.
• Windows + Space: switch keyboard layout.
• Windows + Ctrl + C: color filters on or off, if enabled in Accessibility settings.

Quick Settings on tablets and 2-in-1s

On touch devices, Quick Settings is designed to be finger-friendly. Tiles are large enough to tap, rotation lock appears for devices that rotate, and the brightness slider is especially useful outdoors. Swipe in from the right edge to open the Notification Center, and tap the network, volume and battery area to open Quick Settings. If the tiles feel crowded on a small tablet, unpin the ones you never use, so the essentials fit on the first page.

On 2-in-1 laptops, the rotation lock tile appears only when the device is in tablet posture, folded back or with the keyboard detached; in laptop posture it may vanish, which is normal. If the screen keeps rotating while you read in bed, turn rotation lock on from the tile, or set the orientation permanently under Settings > System > Display > Rotation lock. Windows 11 also hides some tiles and enlarges others automatically in tablet posture, so the panel can look different from one moment to the next on the same device.

Quick Settings and privacy indicators

Windows shows small icons near Quick Settings when apps are using your microphone, camera or location. Hovering over them shows which app is using what. If you see a microphone or camera icon you did not expect, check Settings > Privacy & security, where each permission lists the apps that recently used it, and turn off access for any you do not trust. It is a quick, visible check that every user should know about.

Location works the same way: a location icon appears while an app uses it, and the permission page shows which apps asked. On shared PCs, it is worth reviewing these permissions per user account now and then, especially for apps that do not obviously need a camera or microphone. A small microphone icon during a video call is expected. The same icon while you are only reading email is worth investigating.

For IT admins: managing Quick Settings

Lock the layout. Windows 11 includes Group Policy settings under Start Menu and Taskbar that can prevent users from editing Quick Settings and can present a simplified layout with only essential tiles, useful on kiosks and shared devices. Check the administrative templates for your Windows version, because these settings arrived in later Windows 11 releases.

Notifications. The Notification Center and notifications have their own policies, covered in our notifications guide, including turning off toasts for specific apps across a fleet.

Missing tiles at scale. When many machines lose a tile after an update, it is nearly always a driver: Bluetooth, wireless or display. Compare driver versions between working and failing devices with Get-PnpDevice -Class Bluetooth, Net, Display and roll back or redeploy the OEM driver through your management tool.

Quick Settings and Action Center: frequently asked questions

Ethan's dad's evening ritual is back to one click per step: Night light, which now turns itself on at sunset anyway, volume, and his headphones from the arrow next to the volume slider. The Bluetooth tile has not vanished again, because Jake also showed him how to stop Windows Update replacing the driver that worked. The panel he uses every night now has exactly four tiles on its first page, the four he actually touches. That is the point of Quick Settings: not every switch Windows offers, but the few you use, one click away, arranged in the order your hands expect them every single evening.

Revision note. Written October 2, 2026, rewriting our 2016 Action Center guide for Windows 11's Quick Settings. May your favorite switches always be one click away.