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

Have you been told to open the Action Center on your Windows 10 PC while troubleshooting? And now you ask yourself, “What is Action Center and where is it located?” Do not worry. The action center is not a scary setting that would require professional knowledge to use it. This is just a separate panel to make your work easier on a Windows 10 computer. Let’s check out in detail what Action Center is in Windows 10 and how to use it.

We will cover various questions about Action Center in Windows. These include the location of the action center, how to open it, how to use and customize the action center.

Let’s start.

What is Action Center in Windows 10

The Action Center is a window that hosts 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 combination of the notification screen and from the control center on iPhone and iPad. Do you have a little idea? Now view the same on 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’s split into two sections: notifications at the top and quick action or settings at the bottom.

The action center displays notifications from third-party and system apps. In addition, it bundles app notifications. Tapping the notification will open the respective app with the suggested action.

When it comes to defining shortcuts in the form of quick action buttons, tap a button to turn the feature on or off. You will find shortcuts for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, night light, Focus Assist, etc. You can also access this particular setting directly from the action center itself. In addition, the shortcuts are customizable. So you can rearrange them or keep only the ones 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. Check the far right corner of your taskbar and you’ll see an icon that looks like a chat bubble.

How to open the action center

There are several ways to open Action Center on your computer.

Method 1: Using the mouse

To open the Action Center using your mouse, just click on the Action Center icon in the lower right corner of your screen. This will open the action center window on the right side.

Pro tip: You can also right-click the action center icon and choose Open Action Center.

How to activate or deactivate the action center icon in window 10

If you don’t see the Action Center on your taskbar, it’s likely its icon is turned off. To activate it, do the following:

Step 1: Open the settings on your computer and go to Personalization. Click on the taskbar on the left sidebar.

2nd step: In the taskbar settings, scroll down and click “Turn system icons on or off”.

Step 3: To display the action center icon in the taskbar, turn on the toggle next to the action center. If you want to hide the icon, turn off the toggle.

Point: Find out other ways to resolve the issue if the Action Center is not showing on the taskbar.

Method 2: use the keyboard shortcut

If you’re a fan of keyboard shortcuts, use the Windows logo key + a keyboard shortcut to open action center.

Method 3: Use gestures on touchscreen devices

On touchscreen devices, swipe left from the right edge of the screen. You can slide your finger to the left from any section of the right edge (bottom, center, or top).

Point: Discover 15 tips for using a Windows 10 computer in tablet mode.

Method 4: Using the touchpad gesture

If your touchpad supports gestures, tap the touchpad with four fingers to open the action center. See our guide on setting up and using touchpad gestures in Windows 10.

To fix: Having trouble using touchpad gestures on your computer? Try these 9 helpful methods to fix touchpad gestures not working on Windows 10 computer.

How to use and customize Action Center in Windows 10

Since the Action Center is made up of notifications and shortcuts for settings, you can customize both of them. Let’s start with notifications, followed by quick actions or settings.

How to customize notifications in the Action Center

We’ve broken it down into three sections: turning off notifications, clearing notifications, and hiding the number of notifications.

Hide or show notifications in Action Center

Sometimes when you are working you may be disturbed by the notification banners. To stop this, you don’t need to turn off the action center, you can just turn off notifications for said apps or turn on Focus Assist mode.

To enable or disable apps that should display notifications, open Settings on your computer. Then select System. Click Notifications & Actions in the left sidebar. You will find various settings related to notifications. You can turn off notifications completely by turning off the “ Receive notifications from apps and other senders ” toggle.

Point: You can access this screen by clicking on the Manage Notifications text at the top of the Action Center pane.

However, if you want to customize the notifications by app, just scroll down on the same screen and you will find the “ Receive notifications from these senders ” section. Click on the app whose notifications you want to customize. Let’s say Chrome.

In Chrome, you can turn on or off the ability to show notification banners, show notifications in the action center, play sound, customize the number of notifications, and much more. Likewise, you can customize notifications for other apps and hide or show them in the action center.

Clear notifications in the action center

Notifications don’t stay in the Action Center indefinitely. You can clear all notifications, delete them one by one, or delete all notifications from an app.

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

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

To clear notifications from all apps in the action center, click the Clear all notifications text.

Hide the number of notifications

The Action Center icon indicates the number of unread notifications. If this bothers you, it can be turned off. To do this, right click on the action center icon and select “Do not show number of new notifications”.

How to customize Quick Actions in Action Center

It can be covered in two parts as shown below.

Add, remove, and rearrange quick actions

You can choose which Quick Action Shortcuts appear in the Action Center and where they are located. To customize the shortcuts, right-click any shortcut and choose Edit Quick Actions from the menu.

Point: If you want to open the main shortcut settings page, click Go to settings in the context menu.

To add more shortcuts to the Action Center, click the Add button at the bottom. The available shortcuts will be displayed. Click on the one you want to add and hit the Done button or close the action center.

To change the position of a shortcut, hold it down and drag it to a new position. To remove a shortcut, click the Remove icon at the top of the shortcut. You can add the shortcuts using the Add button.

Expand or collapse quick actions

Windows gives you two methods to view quick actions. You can view all of the Quick Actions in the Action Center or keep just four. To show only four, click the Collapse text in the action center.

This is what the collapsed shortcuts will look like. To view all, click Expand.

Note: Shortcuts added in the first row will display when you collapse them. So rearrange the shortcuts so that the ones you want to keep in the first row.

Make the change

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