How to Add the Hot Corners Feature From macOS to Windows 11
Apple’s macOS operating system contains some good features that Windows lacks, such as the “hot corners” tool. This feature lets you trigger certain actions by moving the cursor to the corners of your screen.
It’s a pity Windows doesn’t have such a native feature, but we can at least add hot corners to it manually. Both WinXCorners and Hot Corners are third-party software packages that replicate the hot corners from macOS onto your Windows system.
How to Add Hot Corners to Windows With WinXCorners
WinXCorners is a free app compatible with Windows 10 and 11. The software includes six default actions you can apply to the corners of the screen, and the 1.2b version of this software lets you set up custom commands.
WinXCorners 1.2b downloads as a 7z archive. So, you’ll need an extraction utility, such as 7-Zip, to open up the program’s archive. If you have no programs that can extract 7z folders, open the7-Zip websiteand grab the app before you continue.
Once done, you’re able to add hot corners to Windows 11 by downloading WinXCorners and extracting it with 7-Zip like this:
Once it’s running you can choose screen corner actions by clicking the drop-down menus to select options for them. You can assign most of the default actions available to the four corners. These are the default actions you can select from:
Once you’ve selected your actions, move your mouse’s pointer to the top, bottom, left, and right screen corners. Moving the cursor to each corner will trigger whatever action you assigned to it, so long as WinXCorners is running in the background.
To configure WinXCorners to automatically start on boot, right-click its system tray icon and selectStart with Windows.
You can also set hot corners to open desktop software, which will let you open a program by moving the cursor to a corner. To do this, you’ll need to set WinXCorners to open a program via its Advanced Options window as follows:
Now the program will open whenever you move the cursor over the chosen corner.
How to Add Hot Corners With the Hot Corners Software
Hot Corners is an alternative to WinXCorners that works much the same. However, this program has some different actions you can set for screen corners.
Hot Corners is a very lightweight app you can utilize on most Windows platforms. Here is how you can add hot corners to Windows 11 with the Hot Corners software:
Hot Corners includes nine action options to select from. For example, you can set actions to open system locations likeControl Paneland My Documents, or you can set a corner to lock your PC ot put it on standby.
If you selectSearch Google, moving the cursor over a corner will bring up a small search box. Typing a keyword in that box will bring up Google search results for it in your default browser.
You can also set each corner to open different programs with Hot Corners. To set a program for one corner, click the drop-down menu for it and selectRun. Click theellipsesbutton in the Run window, and select a program. Then selectOKon all windows.
You’ll notice Hot Corners includes aMouse Movetab. This feature is supposed to enable users to activate actions by moving the mouse up, down, left, and right. However, that feature has aWin+Xactivation hotkey, which conflicts with Windows 11’s Power User menu. Therefore, that feature only works in Windows platforms that don’t have Power User menus, such as Vista and 7.
Also, note that Hot Corners doesn’t save settings when you don’trun it as an administrator. So, make sure you always run the software with elevated permissions. The best thing to do is to set the program to always run as an administrator via itsCompatibilitytab like this:
Now Hot Corners should always run with elevated permissions. To add the program to your startup items, clickOptions>Settingsin Hot Corners. Select theRun on Start-upcheckbox, and clickOKon the Settings window.
Hot Corners Adds New Functionality to Windows 11
So, now you can utilize one of the best macOS features in Windows 11 with WinXCorners and Hot Corners. The hot corners feature those software packages enable gives you a new way to trigger common actions and open programs in Windows.
Enable Hot Corners on your iPad to activate shortcuts when you move the cursor to different corners of the screen.
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