Chapter 6
Using and managing built-in Windows apps
In this chapter, we discuss the apps that are included with a default installation of Microsoft Windows 11. Windows 11 offers a whole set of modern productivity and communication apps, all designed for touch and pen as well as more traditional input methods. Our goal is to provide an overview of those productivity apps, as well as the apps you can use to manage and edit media files. We also mention (albeit briefly) a handful of legacy utility apps, including Notepad and Paint, which have been updated for Windows 11.
For the most part, we deal with system utilities, such as Registry Editor, PowerShell, and Windows Terminal, in other chapters. We reserve the bigger topic of Microsoft Edge, the default browser in Windows 11, for Chapter 7.
Note
Because Microsoft regularly delivers feature-enhancing cumulative updates to Windows 11 as well as updates to apps delivered through the Microsoft Store, several apps described in this chapter might have undergone changes—some minor, others significant—by the time you read this. We describe the apps as they appeared around the time that version 22H2 was released.
Some of these apps were also included with Windows 10 and are essentially identical to their predecessors. In other cases, there are substantial differences or new features that we highlight here. For example, the Clock app still offers the capability to function as a timer or stopwatch, but the Windows 11 update adds the ability to manage “focus sessions,” which allow you to work uninterrupted for a specific period of time. Likewise, the built-in music app, known as Groove Music in Windows 10, is now called Media Player. (Confusingly, the legacy Windows Media Player app is also included with Windows 11; we cover the differences in this chapter.)
To make sure we’re on the same page, we begin with an overview of apps included with a default installation of Windows 11.
Apps included with Windows 11
Every installation of Windows 11 includes a collection of apps that enable the core features of the operating system and add productivity functions. By design, these apps are updated through the Microsoft Store, as needed, rather than requiring a separate update mechanism. They fall into three categories: system apps, provisioned apps, and installed apps. In this section, we describe the differences between these categories and inventory the apps that are a part of current Windows 11 installations.
Note that the listing in this section does not include the dozens of legacy apps that appear in a File Explorer window when you click Start > All Apps > Windows Tools. Some of those apps are essential administrative tools (Task Manager, Event Viewer, and Registry Editor, for example), but many were originally designed for use with earlier Windows versions and are included with Windows 11 primarily for compatibility reasons.
Windows system apps
System apps are installed as part of Windows and are considered integral to the operating system. Many of them are essentially invisible, even though you use their features constantly as you work with Windows 11. For example, every time you click Start, you’re launching the Microsoft Windows Start Menu Experience Host. Likewise, the Search system app goes to work whenever you use the search button on the taskbar. You regularly interact with the Accounts Control Host and Credential Dialog Host apps without ever seeing their names. In fact, the only instantly recognizable app in this category is the Settings app (also known as the Immersive Control Panel).
Most system apps are located in the Windows\SystemApps folder. The two exceptions are the Settings app, whose files are located in C:\Windows\ImmersiveControlPanel, and the Windows Print Dialog app, which is stored in C:\Windows\PrintDialog.
System apps cannot be uninstalled through the Windows user interface, and the reasons seem obvious. Frankly, we can’t think of a good reason why anyone would want to do so.
To list all system apps, use this PowerShell command:
Get-AppxPackage -PackageTypeFilter Main | ? { $_.SignatureKind -eq “System” } | Sort Name | Format-Table Name, InstallLocationProvisioned Windows apps
Provisioned Windows apps are installed in a user account the first time you sign in with that account.
You can list all provisioned Windows apps from an elevated PowerShell window using the following command:
Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Format-Table DisplayName, PackageNameIn Windows 11 version 22H2, the list of provisioned apps includes a small number of core apps that are essential to the operation of Windows but aren’t installed as system apps:
Microsoft Store (which still goes by its old moniker of Windows Store when you use PowerShell to list provisioned apps) is the place to acquire and update apps of all kinds; for details, see “Using and managing Store apps” in Chapter 5, “Installing and configuring apps.” Also on the list of provisioned apps is one called the Store Purchase App, which assists with the process of paying for Store apps.
Desktop App Installer provides the capability to install packaged desktop apps by double-clicking an app package without having to go through the Microsoft Store or use esoteric PowerShell commands. The command-line version of this tool, Winget, can find, install, and update packaged apps from Microsoft’s official repository. (A companion provisioned app, the Visual C++ Runtime framework, is also available for packaged desktops that require it.)
The new Microsoft Edge is included as a provisioned app in Windows 11. For more details, see Chapter 7, “Using Microsoft Edge.”
Windows Security provides the user interface for Microsoft Defender and related security features built into Windows 11. You can read more about these features in Chapter 12, “Windows security and privacy.”
The Web Experience Client manages the Widgets feature, which is described in more detail in Chapter 3, “Using Windows 11.”
The collection of provisioned apps also includes a healthy assortment of extensions that allow Windows apps to process some relatively new media file formats: HEIF Image Extensions, VP9 Video Extensions, Web Media Extensions, a Raw Image Extension, and the WebP Image Extensions.
In addition, OEMs might include some provisioned apps, such as utilities for managing hardware, as part of their default image for PCs that ship with Windows 11 preinstalled.
In the remainder of this section, we break down the lengthy list of provisioned apps by category.
Information
Cortana is installed as an app in Windows 11. It’s no longer tied directly to Windows Search as it was in early versions of Windows 10; instead, it’s used as a voice assistant for Microsoft 365 business accounts and requires signing in with an Azure Active Directory account. Curiously, its name in the list of provisioned apps doesn’t include any hint of its true identity but only a number: Microsoft.549981C3F5F10.
Feedback Hub allows anyone to create, search, share, and upvote bug reports and offer suggestions for the Windows development team.
Get Help puts you in touch with Microsoft’s Virtual Agent. You can tell your troubles to the agent, who provides automated assistance; if that doesn’t solve your problem, you can ask to speak to a live human.
Get Started is a bare-bones tutorial for Windows 11.
Maps displays maps and aerial photos along with directions between points. It also offers a supported way to provide a default location for your PC, as detailed later in this chapter.
News, a news aggregator that displays results similar to those found on the Microsoft Start page and in the corresponding Windows 11 widget, is powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Weather displays current conditions and detailed forecasts for locations around the world, with information drawn from Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Communications and productivity
The Windows Communications App package includes two apps that can be opened separately but use the same infrastructure: Mail allows you to send, receive, and manage email messages using a variety of industry-standard protocols. Calendar keeps track of appointments and other events. A separate People app manages contact information from connected accounts. (We cover all three apps later in this chapter.)
Microsoft To Do is a relatively recent addition to the above suite of apps, delivered as a separate package but integrated with Mail and Calendar in Windows.
Microsoft Teams replaces the legacy Skype app and enables audio/video conferencing capabilities. (As we explain later in this chapter, there are two separate apps that use the Microsoft Teams brand, one for enterprise communications and the other for home/personal use.)
Phone Link (formerly called Your Phone) connects your Windows device to your mobile device. On compatible Android devices, it allows you to send and receive text messages and mirror your phone’s screen on your PC.
Office, which has also been known as My Office, Get Office, and the Office Hub in its time on Windows, is scheduled to get yet another name change in 2023, to Microsoft 365. It provides details about your Microsoft 365 subscription and lists Office files that you have recently worked with. If you don’t have a Microsoft 365 subscription, the app offers access to the web-based versions of Office apps, with files stored in OneDrive.
Sticky Notes provides a place to jot small notes that are reminiscent of the ubiquitous yellow Post-it Notes from 3M. These notes can sync with OneNote and with the Microsoft Launcher on Android devices.
Entertainment
Media Player is the default player app for files in supported audio formats. It was previously known as Groove Music, and its app package betrays its roots as the client for the ill-fated Zune player. (For details, see “Music, photos, and movies,” later in this chapter.)
Movies & TV plays personal videos and allows you to purchase or rent movies and TV shows that can also be played on Xbox consoles. (For details, see “Music, photos, and movies,” later in this chapter.)
Solitaire and Casual Games includes an updated version of the classic Klondike time-waster, along with four other solo card games, with access to online challenges and tournaments and a paid, ad-free version.
Xbox connects you to the world of computer gaming in genres ranging from card games to shoot-em-ups. (The list of provisioned apps also includes a handful of Xbox-related tools intended to perform under-the-hood tasks, including Xbox Game Bar, Xbox Game Overlay, Xbox Gaming Overlay, Xbox Identity Provider, Xbox Speech to Text Overlay, and Xbox Title-callable UI.)
Creative tools
Clipchamp, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2021, is a lightweight utility for creating and editing short video clips.
Microsoft Photos allows you to store, organize, and edit a collection of digital images. We cover this app later in this chapter.
Paint is a Store-compatible version of the venerable Microsoft image editing utility. In Windows 10, Microsoft tried to replace it with a dramatically different app called Paint 3D, but Paint partisans protested so vociferously that Microsoft canceled its plans to deprecate the older Paint and updated the legacy app with new features.
Voice Recorder, previously called Sound Recorder, uses your PC’s microphone to record audio files. You can add markers to identify key moments and use the app’s rudimentary editing tools to trim saved audio files.
Utilities
Alarms & Clock shows world time and acts as an alarm, stopwatch, and timer. In Windows 11, it adds the ability to start and manage “focus sessions,” so you can work without interruptions for a continuous block of time.
Calculator includes a programmer mode (specialized for bitwise operations on binary, octal, and hexadecimal values) along with the more common standard and scientific modes. It can also serve as a handy converter for measurements of weight, volume, length, angles, time, and so on, and with the help of up-to-date exchange rate tables, it can also perform currency conversions.
Camera captures still images and video from a webcam.
Notepad is an updated version of the classic text editor, delivered as a Store app and augmented with a few new features, including support for dark themes.
Power Automate is a low-code platform that allows users to automate repetitive tasks, using prebuilt actions and a recorder that captures mouse and keyboard input to save tasks as “desktop flows.”
Quick Assist allows Windows users to get live, hands-on help from a friend or a support professional using simple screen-sharing tools.
Snipping Tool is a utility for capturing and editing screen images. This app was previously known as Snip & Sketch.
Windows Terminal offers a multitabbed interface for working with the Windows Command Processor, PowerShell, and the command-line shell from the Windows Subsystem for Linux. We describe these tools in more detail in Chapter 16, “Windows Terminal, PowerShell, and other advanced management tools.”
Some provisioned apps can be uninstalled using the tools in Settings > Apps > Installed Apps. If the Uninstall command is grayed out and unavailable, it may be possible to remove a provisioned app using PowerShell commands. We advise against using these options, which can have unintended consequences.
Installed apps
This last category consists of apps that are installed as part of signing in to a new account, delivered through the Windows Content Delivery Manager. These apps include some third-party products that may include a trial period followed by the requirement to pay for the full product. It also includes some apps from Microsoft.
The list of installed apps changes periodically, based on Microsoft’s partnerships with third-party developers.
For PCs running Windows 11 Home or Pro where the new profile belongs to a local account or a Microsoft account, the list typically includes social media apps such as TikTok and Facebook, along with some entertainment software such as the Amazon Prime and Disney+ streaming video services.
You see a different set of installed apps, focused primarily on productivity, if you install Windows 11 Enterprise and sign in using any account type, or if you install Windows 11 Pro and sign in using either Active Directory credentials on a Windows domain or Azure Active Directory credentials, such as those associated with a Microsoft 365 Business or Enterprise subscription.
All apps in this category can be uninstalled using the tools in Settings > Apps > Installed Apps. Some of the apps in this category are added to Start as suggestions, rather than being installed. You can remove them from Start, leaving no trace of the app behind.
Mail, Calendar, People, and To Do
The Mail, Calendar, People, and To Do apps are designed to connect to cloud-based services and sync email, calendar items, contacts, and tasks from those accounts.
Mail and Calendar are the two most important apps in the group and are equal partners. In the Installed Apps list, in fact, they share a single entry, titled Mail And Calendar, but in this chapter we treat them as separate apps because they operate in separate app windows, using separate processes. They’re capable of syncing with a wide assortment of online services: You can sign in using free and paid accounts from Microsoft (Outlook.com and Microsoft 365) and Google (Gmail and Google Workspace); other supported services include Apple’s iCloud, Yahoo Mail, and any server that communicates using industry-standard mail and calendar protocols. If your workplace uses Microsoft Exchange on its own servers, you can connect to those accounts as well.
Using the Mail and Calendar apps, you can connect to accounts on multiple services and display their contents simultaneously. That capability makes it easy to switch between personal and business email accounts or provide a unified view of multiple accounts; it also allows you to see the contents of multiple calendars in a single overlaid view. Any additions, deletions, or changes you make to messages and calendar items in either app are saved on the server associated with that account; for cloud-based accounts that support synchronization, changes you make using another app (including those on mobile devices) are synced automatically to the Mail and Calendar app.
Although they are tightly linked, the Mail, Calendar, People, and To Do apps display their contents in separate windows. Shortcuts for the Mail and Calendar apps are pinned by default to the Start menu, and you can use icons in the lower-left corner of those apps to open or switch to any of the other apps.
The To Do app does not have the same navigation bar as Mail and Calendar. Although you can connect to multiple accounts, it displays the contents of only one account at a time.
The People app has no shortcut in All Apps and is of little use on its own. Its primary role is to organize contact information for sending email messages and calendar invitations.
Managing online accounts
As we noted earlier, the Mail and Calendar apps are tightly linked. When you add a new account in the Mail app, it’s automatically added to Calendar and vice-versa.
Also, any accounts you add in either place are automatically added to the list of accounts available to other Windows apps, in Settings > Accounts > Email & Accounts.
The first time you open the Mail or Calendar app, you’re asked to add an account, as shown in Figure 6-1.
Figure 6-1 To set up an account that uses any of these well-known cloud services, you only need to enter an email address and password.
If you sign in to Windows using a Microsoft account or an Azure AD account, the email address associated with that account appears at the top of this setup page. If that’s the only email account you use, you can move on by selecting that account and allowing Windows to add its account automatically.
If you log on with a local account or if you’d prefer to set up a different email account than the one associated with your Windows sign-in account, choose an account type from the Add An Account dialog box. Mail supports Outlook.com, Office 365, Microsoft Exchange, Google accounts (Gmail and Google Workspace), Yahoo! Mail, and Apple’s iCloud, as well as generic accounts based on the POP and IMAP standards. The setup process is straightforward, prompting you for your email address and password.
If your account requires you to enter additional settings, such as the names of your incoming and outgoing servers, scroll to the bottom of the Add An Account list and then click Advanced Setup.
Adding, deleting, and renaming accounts
To add email and calendar accounts after completing this initial configuration, open Settings by clicking the gear icon in the lower-left corner of the Mail window, and then click Manage Accounts > Add Account. Choose an account type, enter your credentials, and follow the authentication prompts.
Each account you add gets its own entry in the navigation pane that appears on the left in both the Mail and Calendar apps. To change the display name that appears there, open the Manage Accounts menu and then click the account name to display a dialog box like the one shown in Figure 6-2.
Figure 6-2 Click in the Account Name box to change the display name that appears in the navigation pane for both the Mail and Calendar apps.
To delete an existing account, select its entry from the Manage Accounts menu and then click Delete Account From This Device. Note that doing so removes all synced copies of email messages and calendar items but does not make any changes to items stored on the server.
Setting sync options
To configure sync options for an account, open the Mail or Calendar app and go to Settings > Manage Accounts; select the account you want to configure, and then click Change Mailbox Sync Settings. That opens a dialog box like the one shown in Figure 6-3. Don’t be misled by the name of that option; as the dialog box makes clear, it allows you to configure synchronization of mail, calendar, and contact items.
Figure 6-3 For secondary email accounts where you don’t maintain a calendar or contacts, feel free to turn off the bottom two switches.
The two settings at the top allow you to manage network connections and disk space, respectively.
For your primary account, the default, As Items Arrive, is appropriate for the Download New Content setting. That option minimizes the chance that you will miss a time-sensitive message. For secondary accounts that don’t contain important content, you might want to change the sync interval to something more leisurely. Options include Every 15 Minutes, Every 30 Minutes, or Hourly. Choose Manually for low-traffic accounts you are willing to update and read on demand.
The Download Email From setting is a way to save disk space by leaving old messages on the server and only syncing recent correspondence. Options here range from Past 3 Days to Past 3 Months. The default setting, Any Time, syncs the entire contents of your email account, which might require a significant amount of disk space.
The three switches under the Sync Options heading allow you to control the type of data the Mail and Calendar apps sync from your account. If you maintain a calendar and a contacts list as part of your email account, you probably want to sync all three items here. But for secondary accounts that you use to keep newsletters and promotional email messages out of your primary inbox, you probably want to turn the Calendar and Contacts switches to the Off position.
Reading, composing, and managing email messages
In the Mail app, each account you add gets its own heading in the navigation pane on the left. Clicking that heading displays the list of folders associated with that account in the bottom of the navigation pane. (If the Mail window is too narrow, you need to click the Expand/Collapse icon in the upper-left corner to see the folder list.) Figure 6-4 shows the Mail app in action with a single account.
Figure 6-4 The Mail app uses a classic three-pane layout: navigation on the left, a message list in the center, and preview pane on the right.
If you’ve ever used a PC-based mail client, this three-pane layout should feel familiar. By default, the entries under the Folders heading show the most commonly used folders: Inbox, Drafts, Sent, and so on. Click More (at the bottom of the folder list) to slide out a pane with a list of additional folders that are available for that account. Select any folder to display its contents in the message pane. Click the plus sign to the right of the All Folders list to add a new folder.
Right-click any existing folder to perform basic management tasks: rename the folder, delete it, empty its contents, or create a new subfolder. Use the Add To Favorites option to add a star to the folder and pin its shortcut to the navigation pane under the Folders heading. Any folder in the Favorites list is a convenient drag-and-drop target for messages you want to move out of your Inbox.
Linking inboxes
If you have two or more email accounts, Mail creates a separate entry for each one under the Accounts heading in the left-hand navigation pane. When you select an account heading, the folders list and message list show only items from that account. You might find it more convenient to consolidate incoming messages from those two accounts in a unified inbox. To do this, open Settings > Manage Accounts > Link Inboxes. Enter the name you want to see in the navigation pane (the default is Linked Inbox) and then select the check boxes next to each account you want to include in that group. If you change your mind, you can unlink the accounts by returning to this dialog box and removing check marks.
After selecting a Linked Inbox in the navigation pane, click More to see a folders list that includes folders from each account, grouped under their respective account headings. Four folders are at the top of the list and are consolidated from linked accounts: Inbox, Drafts, Archive, and Sent.
Reducing mailbox clutter with Focused Inbox
The Focused Inbox feature uses machine learning to sort your incoming messages into two groups: those that the algorithm thinks you want to read immediately and those that it believes you find less important. With Focused Inbox, two tab headings appear above the list of messages in the message header pane—Focused and Other—as shown in Figure 6-5. If the algorithm correctly categorized your incoming messages, you see only important messages on the Focused tab, with everything else on the Other tab.
Figure 6-5 The Focused Inbox feature uses machine learning to highlight important messages and shift less valuable content to the Other tab.
The Focused Inbox algorithm makes its sorting decisions based on signals it divines from the content of incoming messages and by making notes of whom you exchange mail with most frequently. Newsletters, commercial pitches, and the like are considered less important and thus kept on the Other tab. You can train the Focused Inbox feature to work more accurately by right-clicking a message in the message list and choosing Always Move To Other or Always Move To Focused.
That same menu also includes an Ignore option, which enables you to tell Mail to stop showing you messages in a specific conversation. This option is extremely handy if you’re part of a mailing list whose members can’t stop adding to a long, ongoing thread.
The Focused Inbox feature works on a per-account basis; to turn it on or off for a specific account, open the Mail app’s Settings menu, click Focused Inbox, choose an account, and then slide the switch to the preferred position. If Focused Inbox is turned off, all incoming messages for that account appear in a single Inbox tab.
Creating and sending email messages
To create a new message, select an account first and then click the New Mail icon at the top of the navigation pane. If you start from a linked inbox, the From field contains a drop-down list you can use to choose the correct sending account.
The message composition window contains a ribbon that provides a basic set of editing and formatting tools. On the Format tab, for example, are options for changing fonts and font sizes and adjusting the size and color of text
To attach a file to your message, click the Insert tab. You can use that part of the ribbon to insert tables, pictures, and hyperlinks as well. Alternatively, you can create an attachment by dragging a file into your new message document. Mail also provides a proofreader; click Options and then click Spelling to check your messages for typos.
Use the Draw menu option to add drawings or annotations to a message using familiar drawing tools. These options work best on devices that support a pen, but you can also insert a drawing canvas and mark up a message using a mouse or even your finger on a touchscreen
In a new Mail message or a reply, you can insert @ mentions into an email message. When you type @ and then begin typing a name, Mail suggests auto-completions from your address book and from previous messages; after you select the name you want to add, Mail highlights the name in the message and adds it to the To line of the message header (if it isn’t already there), helping to ensure that the person you tagged sees your message.
You can then edit the name in the message body if you like; for example, you might want to keep things informal by trimming off the last name.
When people receive a message with an @ mention, it remains highlighted for good visibility. In addition, the highlighted name is a mailto: link, so when recipients click the name, it opens a new message window with the name already in the To box.
You can filter your inbox to show only messages that include an @ mention with your name. Click the arrow at the top of the message header pane and choose Mentions.
Setting up and using Calendar
Not surprisingly, the Calendar app is similar in design to its counterpart, Mail. There’s a navigation pane on the left, with a one-month date picker control on top and check boxes for available calendars below. Figure 6-6 shows a calendar displaying events from three calendars over the course of one work week.
Figure 6-6 Use the check boxes in the navigation pane to show or hide events from any calendar. Each calendar applies its own color to events.
Calendar allows you to switch between views of your upcoming appointments, meetings, and events: Day, Week, Month, and Year. You can choose a particular period of time to work with using the thumbnail calendar in the navigation pane or the left/right arrows at the top of the calendar itself. To return to the current date, click Today.
As expected, clicking Day changes the display to a single column that shows only events from the currently selected day. But move the mouse pointer over that button and a small arrow appears to the right; click to display a Multi-Day Views menu, where you can show between two and six days’ worth of events. In similar fashion, clicking the arrow to the right of the Week control displays the option to change the view to Work Week. The Year view displays no event information but is useful if you want to jump to a future date without scrolling one month at a time in the navigation pane.
If you’ve set up multiple accounts for syncing calendar items, your meetings and events are combined into a single view on the right. Use the check boxes in the navigation pane to determine which accounts can contribute to the composite calendar.
Each account’s calendar items are distinguished by color, with the specific color assigned to that calendar visible when you select its check box. To change the color for a calendar, point to its entry in the navigation pane, click the down arrow that appears to its right, and select a color.
You can also add specialty calendars that show schedules for sports teams, network television shows, and so on. To do that, click Add Calendars. (If you have multiple Microsoft-hosted accounts set up in Calendar, you specify which one displays the calendars you add by going to Settings > Calendar Settings > Interesting Calendars.)
Adding an event
To add an event to your calendar, click or tap New Event; that action opens the full Details window for the event, as shown in Figure 6-7.
Figure 6-7 The New Event form offers all of the details you need to create an event or a meeting. Make sure to select the correct calendar from the drop-down list at the right of the event name.
If you click a specific time (in Day or Week view) or double-click a date in Month view, you get a smaller version of the New Event window, in pop-up form. It contains all the information you need to create a basic appointment on the selected day and set a reminder up to a week before the event time. If you need to change a detail that isn’t in this compact form, like the event date, you can move to the full view by clicking More Details. In either case, if you have Calendar configured to use more than one account, be sure to specify which account the new event should belong to.
For events you add to a Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com calendar, typing in the Location box performs a live lookup of local addresses that match your entry. Using that data makes it possible for linked navigation apps to get you (and your guests) to the correct meeting place.
To set up an event that occurs at regular intervals, start a new event and then click the Repeat button, which is on the right of the menu bar in the New Event window. Calendar offers daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly options, with variations like Every 4 Weeks or Every Month On The Second Tuesday.
Inviting others to a meeting
To create a meeting event and invite others to join, add the email addresses of your invitees to the People section of the event; if the prospective attendees are in your Contacts list, you can click the icon to the right of the Invite Someone prompt and then choose names from the list. Use the Online Meeting button to schedule a virtual meeting using Microsoft Teams (click again to clear the online details if you’re planning an in-person event).
Entering one or more email addresses changes the event form’s Save button to a Send button. After you click Send, each invitee gets an email message with the option to provide a yes/no/maybe response. The Accept, Tentative, and Decline links, with associated drop-down options, make it easy for you, as an invitee, to respond to an invitation.
Setting options
To specify the days of your work week and the hours of your work day, click Settings > Calendar Settings. You can do a few other things as well on the Calendar Settings page, such as opting for week numbers and switching to alternative languages and calendars. If you stick with English, the calendar choices include Hijri, Umm al-Qura, Hebrew Lunar, and Saka Era, in addition to the default Gregorian. Many other options are available for languages other than English.
Printing from Calendar
To print, click Show (the ellipsis icon in the upper-right corner of the Calendar window) and then click Print, or use the standard Windows keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+P. There you can specify the starting date for your output as well as whether to print by day (choosing a range of one to seven days), week, work week, or month. A preview button gives you the opportunity to check the output (with the option to zoom in using a touchpad or by holding down Ctrl as you use a mouse wheel) before you commit it to paper.
Adding or editing contacts with People
Among the four apps we cover in this section, People is definitely the most limited. It’s also well hidden, with no shortcut on the Start menu’s All Apps list.
Microsoft had much greater expectations for this app when it debuted at the dawn of the Windows 10 era. In those days, the Windows taskbar included a special toolbar called My People, with the option to pin items from the People app for quick access to messaging apps and other details. The Pin To Taskbar option is still available when you right-click a contact item in the People app in Windows 11, but it does absolutely nothing. (The option to pin a contact to the Start menu, however, works as expected.)
The primary job of People is to serve as a repository for contacts associated with accounts you set up in Mail or Calendar. That feature is readily accessible when creating a new email message or calendar event; click the small Choose Contacts icon to display a streamlined version of the People app with a list of suggested contacts and a search box to help you pick the right contact from the full list.
To launch the full People app, click its icon at the bottom of the navigation pane in the Mail or Calendar app. That view provides a full list of contacts from multiple accounts, summarizing contact information and shared calendar events for the selected contact in a pane to the right.
Although People has an interesting feature set, it doesn’t make a compelling case for using it as a standalone app. In most cases, you get better results managing your contacts in your web browser; then you can connect that contacts list to People and make those addresses available for the basic tasks of picking email addresses for new messages and meetings.
Managing tasks and lists with Microsoft To Do
Microsoft To Do, the newest member of Microsoft’s group of communication-related apps, is specifically designed to make you more productive—or at least to help you see at a glance what you haven’t accomplished today. The app works only with Microsoft accounts (personal and business), offering tools for managing upcoming tasks and creating lists that can become surprisingly complex.
You can open To Do from its shortcut on the Start menu or from its place at the bottom of the navigation pane in Mail or Calendar. As Figure 6-8 illustrates, the To Do app follows many of the same navigation principles as its peers, with a navigation pane on the left and a details pane on the right displaying the contents of whatever you select in the navigation pane.
Figure 6-8 The primary focus of Microsoft To Do is this Tasks list, but you can use it to create anything from a simple grocery list to a step-by-step action plan.
To add a new task to the list, click in the box at the bottom of the Tasks pane and type a title. If you need to add details to the task, click its entry in the list to open an editing window on the right. There, you can add a reminder, specify a due date, or begin adding steps to break a big task into discrete milestones. You can also add notes and file attachments to any task and assign tasks to other people. If this is the first time you’ve used To Do with a Microsoft account, look for an at-a-glance tutorial in the Getting Started list. If that option’s not available, try visiting https://support.microsoft.com/todo, which contains an assortment of tips, tricks, and troubleshooting advice.
You can create as many lists as you want using the New List button at the bottom of the navigation pane.
Although you can configure To Do for use with multiple accounts, you can only see one group of lists at a time. To configure To Do for use with an additional account, click the double-headed arrow to the right of your account name and then click Manage Accounts. A link to the app’s Settings page is also available there, with options to automatically start To Do when you sign in to Windows and control whether the app automatically turns text like “next Tuesday” into deadlines.
Clicking the star next to any item flags it as Important, moving it to the top of its list and also making it part of the Important view in the navigation pane. (To Do calls these views “smart lists.” You can control which ones are visible using switches in Settings.) Right-click any item and choose Add To My Day (or use the shortcut Ctrl+1) to tell To Do that you want to make that item a top priority and add it to the My Day view.
Using Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a unified communications app that takes over many of the functions offered in previous Windows versions by the Skype app. Confusingly, this free app, which is included with Windows 11, requires a Microsoft account and doesn’t currently interoperate with the business version of Microsoft Teams, even though the feature sets overlap significantly.
When you’re signed in with a personal Microsoft account, you can chat with friends and family with no limits, using the Teams app on Windows PCs, Macs, and mobile devices. You can also set up group calls and online meetings, with audio and video, with calls limited to no more than 60 minutes and 100 participants. Those limits are increased substantially if you’re a Microsoft 365 subscriber.
Microsoft Teams offers a bare-bones interface, as shown in Figure 6-9, with four icons in a slim navigation bar on the left.
Figure 6-9 Use this tab to start or schedule a Microsoft Teams meeting. You can copy a meeting link that allows other people to join from a browser without installing the app.
The Activity page shows a feed that combines notifications from all your contacts, while the remaining icons allow you to start a chat (in text mode or with audio and video support), launch an online meeting, or schedule a meeting for later.
Music, photos, and movies
The rise of the smartphone, coupled with cloud-based streaming entertainment services, means the PC is no longer the indispensable hub of digital media. PCs are still uniquely qualified for tasks that involve editing and managing a personal media collection and syncing your collection with cloud services; but you’re just as likely to use a smaller mobile device or tablet to play music, watch a movie, or flip through a collection of digital pictures.
Microsoft Windows 11 includes three core media apps—Media Player, Photos, and Movies & TV. A fourth app, Clipchamp, is a relatively recent addition to Windows 11, offering tools for creating and editing short video clips. We cover all four apps in this section, with the understanding that most of our readers probably prefer third-party apps for many of the tasks these apps are designed to perform.
Using Media Player to play music and video files
No, you’re not seeing double. Windows 11 includes two apps with the name Media Player:
Media Player is the replacement for the Groove Music app introduced with Windows 10. Like its predecessor, it’s a modern Windows app capable of playing music files, but updates to the Windows 11 version have added the ability to play audio CDs and video files and to rip CD tracks to digital file formats.
Windows Media Player Legacy, as it’s labeled in Windows 11 version 22H2, is virtually identical to the app that debuted more than a decade ago in Windows 7. It exists exclusively for backward compatibility, and most Windows 11 users will have no use for it.
Both apps support the same audio file formats and create indexed libraries from the contents of folders in your Music library. The newer Media Player also creates an index library of video files. (The indexes created by the two apps use different formats and are stored separately.) A recent update to the newer Media Player app allows it to play and rip tracks from audio CDs.
Media Player’s role in Windows 11 is to offer native playback capability for a wide assortment of file formats. Although you can install third-party apps as an alternative, this app does a competent job of playback for just about any media file. We can’t think of any good reason for anyone to use the Windows Media Player Legacy app.
Supported file formats
Windows 11 installs a collection of codecs that enable support for a wide variety of audio, video, and image file formats. All of these codecs work with the native Windows 11 apps, including Media Player and Photos. For a full list of supported formats, see https://bit.ly/supported-codecs.
When it comes to compression, Windows 11 supports both lossy and lossless formats. Most popular algorithms used to compress audio (and video) files are lossy, which means that they achieve compression by eliminating data. In the case of audio files in the popular MP3 and AAC formats (as well as the less popular Ogg formats), the data that’s tossed out during the compression process consists mostly of frequencies that are outside the normal range of human hearing. The level of compression is determined by the bit rate. Higher bit rates preserve more of the original sound quality of audio tracks but result in larger files on your hard disk or portable player. Lower bit rates pack more music into limited space at a cost in fidelity.
Windows 11 supports lossless compressed formats as well, including Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) and Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC). These formats require more disk space than their lossy counterparts but offer better audio quality and take up dramatically less space than uncompressed Waveform Audio (WAV) files.
Windows 11 also supports playback of multiple video formats, including MPEG-4 video (.mp4 and .m4v), QuickTime (.mov), Matroska video (.mkv), WebM (.webm), and Ogg container or Theora files (.ogv).
Every installation of Windows 11 sets Media Player as the default music and video player for supported formats.
Managing music and video libraries
As with other native Windows 11 apps, the Media Player interface includes a navigation pane on the left and a contents pane on the right. The no-frills interface includes a Home page that allows you to revisit music and video tracks you’ve played recently, with separate links below that for your music and video libraries. Figure 6-10 shows the Music Library, sorted to show albums grouped by artist.
Figure 6-10 Media Player uses its online smarts to retrieve album art and other metadata for tracks in your music library.
The Music Library page includes grouping options that allow you to slice and dice your local collection, displaying its contents by song, album, or artist, with a variety of sort and filter options. If you have a large library, the option to display albums sorted by year is an effective way to time-travel through musical history.
The Video Library page is far less customizable. It shows every video file in your library, period.
Media Player follows the conventions of most modern player apps, so its basic look and feel should be familiar. Click the Play button to begin playing a song, album, or video immediately. Right-click any song, album, or video and then click Add To > Play Queue to build a continuous live playlist. Click Play Queue in the navigation pane to see what’s playing now and what’s up next.
Below those core navigation links is the Playlists option, which opens a pane where you can create custom playlists from tracks in your library and manage previously created playlists.
Playing and ripping CDs
Thanks to a July 2022 update, the Media Player app can play back audio CDs and convert (“rip”) tracks from an audio CD, saving those tracks in digital formats on your local hard drive.
When Media Player detects that you’ve inserted an audio CD, it displays a new entry in the navigation pane for that CD, just below the Music Library and Video Library nodes. The app uses online data sources to determine the name of your disc, as well as the names of the artist and the titles of individual songs.
To choose the digital format for your ripped CD tracks, select the entry for the audio CD in the navigation bar and click the Rip Settings button to the right of the Play button. If this button isn’t visible, click See More (the three dots). That displays the Rip Settings options, shown in Figure 6-11.
Figure 6-11 Media Player offers a selection of lossy and lossless formats for ripping tracks from audio CDs.
The Format menu offers four options. For maximum compatibility, choose AAC, which is functionally equivalent to the well-known MP3 format and should be playable in any modern media playback software. If you choose this format, use the Bit Rate menu below it to choose a quality level, where higher bit rates result in greater fidelity but also require more disk space. (We can’t think of any good reason to choose the lossy WMA format.)
If you’d prefer to rip your tracks in a lossless format, you have two options: Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) and Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC). In general, we recommend choosing FLAC, which is widely supported and stores music files efficiently without sacrificing any information. In theory, at least, a track saved in either of these lossless formats should be indistinguishable from the original.
Click Save to set your preferences, and then click Edit Info to display a listing like the one shown in Figure 6-12, where you can change the details for the album—correcting a typo in a song title, for example. Use the Update Album Info Online link at the top to have Media Player check for alternative versions of the album online.
Figure 6-12 Spend some time getting this metadata right before you rip a CD to ensure that the resulting digital files are organized correctly.
Media Player uses that metadata to create a folder for the artist and a subfolder for the album being ripped as well as naming the tracks. Click Rip to begin. Media Player copies each CD track to a separate file and stores it, by default, in the Save location for the Music library of the currently signed-in user profile (by default, this location is %UserProfile%\Music).
For details on how to change the default save location, see “Using libraries,” in Chapter 9, “Using File Explorer.”
Using Photos to view and edit image files
Microsoft Photos, which is included with every edition of Windows 11, is a lightweight but capable tool for viewing, managing, and editing a collection of digital images. Microsoft shipped a significant upgrade to this app with Windows 11 version 22H2, and we cover that version in this chapter.
Note
The grizzled elder of image editors, Paint, has been repackaged and updated for Windows 11 but still remains a part of the operating system primarily for compatibility’s sake. We do not cover it in this chapter.
Microsoft Photos version 2022 sports a new interface more in keeping with other built-in Windows apps. It includes most of the capabilities of its predecessor, with one notable exception: It doesn’t offer the video editing tools from the previous release. (If you need to edit a video clip, the designers of Windows 11 expect you to use Clipchamp, the new default video editor.)
The previous version of the Photos app updates itself automatically to the new one; if you need to install the previous version, it’s available in the Microsoft Store, under the name Microsoft Photos Legacy. A shortcut to that Store listing is available in the new Photos app; go to Settings and click Get Photos Legacy, under the About heading. The Photos app gathers your digital photos (from local folders and from OneDrive) and displays them in a thumbnail view that’s easy to browse. If you’ve installed the OneDrive app on your smartphone and configured it to automatically upload your new photos as you take them, you have easy access to the lightweight editing tools in the Photos app without having to fuss with importing photos.
Figure 6-13 shows the user interface of the new Photos app, with the entire collection available for browsing and editing.
Figure 6-13 Clicking All Photos at the top of the navigation pane displays a unified collection of digital pictures from different folders, sorted by date, with the newest photos first.
The Photos app displays a unified view of all the image files it finds in your Pictures library. It also includes the option to show photos and videos from OneDrive, even if those files are not synchronized with your PC or tablet.
The navigation pane on the left includes an All Photos link at the top. Clicking that shortcut opens a combined view of all the digital images in the Pictures folder of the linked OneDrive account and all folders in the local Pictures library. Click an individual folder heading in the navigation pane to see just image files stored in that location.
- For details about how libraries work, see “Using libraries,” in Chapter 9.
To add or remove a folder, click the Folders heading. That actions displays all currently available folders in the contents pane. Click the Add A Folder button and choose any existing folder to add it to the Pictures library and make it available in the Photos app. Right-click any folder and choose Remove Folder to stop displaying its contents in the Photos app. (Removing a folder here does not delete the folder from local storage or from OneDrive.)
Note
As we were putting the finishing touches on this chapter, Microsoft announced that the latest release of Apple’s iCloud app, which is available in the Microsoft Store, allows your iCloud Photo Library to integrate with the Photos app. This integration adds an iCloud Photos heading to the navigation pane in File Explorer and in the Photos app; its contents appear in the All Photos view.
The three icons in the upper right allow you to change how the contents pane appears. There, you can set the sort order (Date Taken is the default), filter the contents to show only photos or only videos, and change the way thumbnails appear. For the latter setting, choose River to see thumbnails in their actual aspect ratio and Square to show each photo as a square. With either option, you can also choose a size, from large (best when you want to quickly go through a small group of related images) to medium to small (ideal for browsing quickly through a timeline to find photos from a specific date).
As you scroll through a collection, the heading above those thumbnails changes to show the date taken (or, if you’ve changed the sort order, the date when the image was created or modified). On the thumbnails themselves, a blue icon means the image is in OneDrive; a separate icon showing three overlapping rectangles denotes an image that has duplicate copies.
Click any thumbnail to open it full size, zooming the image to fit in the app window without any cropping and displaying small thumbnails of other images from the same point in the collection using a filmstrip at the bottom of the window. Right-click the image to display additional options, as shown in Figure 6-14.
Figure 6-14 After opening an image, select one or more additional thumbnails from the filmstrip along the bottom to compare the pictures side by side.
The options at the top of that right-click menu are relatively straightforward—Save As, Print, Copy, and so on. Choose Resize Image if you’re planning to use an image on a web page or as part of an email and you want to reduce the amount of file space it uses.
The View Actual Size and Fill Window options enable you to take a closer look at an image that’s larger than the app window while possibly requiring that you scroll to see details that don’t fit. Click Zoom To Fit to return to the default view. Use the Add To/Remove From Favorites menu below that to tag images you like so that you can retrieve them quickly using the Favorites view.
When you select multiple thumbnails from the filmstrip, Photos shows the images side by side in the app window, making it easy to compare similar shots from the same sequence to decide which one is better.
The small toolbar centered at the top of this pane includes some editing options as well as a File Info button. (If you’d prefer to keep your hands on the keyboard, press Alt+Enter.) The Info pane displays details about the image file and some of its metadata, as shown in Figure 6-15.
Figure 6-15 Press Alt+Enter to open this info pane, where you can rename the image file, look at image metadata, and add your own description.
From the info pane, you can change the name of an image file—useful when you want to replace the default filename generated by the camera with something more descriptive. You can also add a description to the image file that you can use to find it in File Explorer. Note that much of the metadata displayed in the File Info pane, including technical details about the camera, is read-only. You can, however, modify the Date Taken and Time Taken details; this might be necessary if the clock on your camera or smartphone was still set to your home time zone, for example, even though the photo was taken on a different continent.
In the case of photos stored in a local or network folder, you can work with the file and its metadata directly; click the link under the File Path heading to open the folder containing the image in File Explorer.
Using the Photos app to crop and edit pictures
The greatest strength of the Photos app is its collection of lightweight editing tools. After opening an image, click or tap Edit Image in the toolbar at the top of the window, or press Ctrl+E.
To quickly turn a casual shot into something worth keeping and sharing, start with the tools on the Crop menu, where you can crop, flip, rotate, and straighten the image as needed. Two sets of editing tools are available beneath the image. The first, shown at the top of Figure 6-16, contains a slider you can use to straighten an image, as well as additional buttons for rotating the image or flipping it. Click the icon beneath the center of the slider to reveal the display shown at the bottom of Figure 6-16, where you can lock in a specific aspect ratio.
Figure 6-16 Click the icon below the straightening slider to reveal a selection of fixed aspect ratios, useful for cropping to a specific shape.
Straighten an image by moving the horizon of the image in either direction, one degree at a time. After choosing an aspect ratio, grab any of the sides or corners of the image and drag to resize the image. If you choose the Free option, you can drag the image to any rectangular shape without constraints.
Click Adjustment to switch to a different set of editing tools, as shown in Figure 6-17.
Figure 6-17 It’s possible to improve a photo with judicious application of these light and color editing tools, which can compensate for poor lighting or exposure.
The Brightness and Exposure sliders at the top of the pane work in straightforward fashion. Slide to the left to make an overexposed photo darker, or to the right to brighten an image that seems a little too dark.
Use the sliders under the Color heading to change the temperature, tint, or saturation of the image—for example, to compensate for a blue tint from indoor lighting. Move the bar all the way to the left to remove all color, converting the image to monochrome, and to the right to punch up the saturation of the image. All of these effects are best used in moderation.
If you don’t like the results after tinkering with these effects, click the Reset option in the top left to return the image to its original settings and start over.
The Filter heading opens a palette of 15 predefined filters that collectively give the image a distinctive look and feel. Use the Intensity slider to adjust the filter’s effects. There’s no penalty in trying different filters to see whether you like the result; you can always choose Original (the first item in the list of filters) to remove all effects.
After you’re satisfied with your edits, use the menu in the top right to save a copy of the image under a new name or to apply all edits, using the same file name and replacing the current image.
Using Movies & TV to watch purchased media files
With Microsoft’s recent enhancements making Media Player the default player for personal video files, the Movies & TV app has been demoted significantly. As of Windows 11 version 22H2, its primary role is to play movies and TV shows purchased from the Microsoft Store—which is, not coincidentally, the same source used for buying and playing media on Xbox consoles. If you’re an enthusiastic consumer of content on the Xbox platform, this app might be of interest. If not, it’s mostly irrelevant.
As of late 2022, the Movies & TV app has not been updated to follow the design principles of other native Windows 11 apps. Instead of a navigation pane on the left, there’s a navigation bar along the top, as shown in Figure 6-18.
Figure 6-18 Movies and TV programs you purchased through an Xbox or from the Microsoft Store are available for playback in the Movies & TV app.
Although this app includes a Personal tab that displays files from your video library, that display duplicates what you find in the newer Media Library, and we recommend using that app for your collection of personal video files.
Using Clipchamp to edit video clips
Although the title bar calls Clipchamp a video editor, that label might be slightly misleading. This app might be more appropriately labeled a video creation tool, with a special emphasis on short-form videos for advertising and social media applications. Within the application, there’s no way to open a video file, although you can right-click any video clip in File Explorer and choose to open it with Clipchamp.
Microsoft purchased Clipchamp in 2021 and rolled the app into Windows 11 the following year. Unlike most of the apps included with Windows 11, Clipchamp follows a freemium model, where advanced features require a paid subscription.
If you already have a Microsoft 365 account, Clipchamp allows you to export videos up to a resolution of 1080p, with free stock photos and a selection of filters and effects. A paid subscription adds premium stock photos and a “brand kit” that businesses can use to apply fonts, colors, and logos to any video.
The Clipchamp interface encourages you to create videos using templates for common online services, including YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, as shown in Figure 6-19. You can record a video using your screen, your webcam, or both.
Figure 6-19 The Clipchamp interface is designed for creating social media content, ads, and other short clips.
Creating a video from one of these templates takes you to a full-featured video editor that we could probably spend many pages describing. We suspect that Clipchamp is going to go through some significant revisions as it finds its place in the Windows app landscape, so rather than document its features here, we encourage you to try it for yourself.
Performing screen captures with Snipping Tool
Pictures speak louder than words, and sometimes an image capture of the current window or screen can be the ideal way to enhance a PowerPoint presentation, explain a procedure, or remind yourself at some future time of what you were doing and how. All Windows versions, from the very first to the present, have offered two keyboard shortcuts for capturing screens:
PrtScn captures an image of the entire screen. If you have multiple monitors, the image includes all screens.
Alt+PrtScn captures an image of the current window.
Both capture methods post bitmaps to the Clipboard, and you can paste the results into any app that accepts graphics.
Note
These two screen-capture methods can also automatically save an image file (in PNG format) to your personal OneDrive account. To turn this feature on or off, right-click the OneDrive icon in the notification area and choose Settings. The setting is on the Backup tab under Screenshots.
Windows 11, like its recent predecessors, offers two additional built-in shortcuts:
Windows key+PrtScn captures an image of all current screens (including secondary screens) and saves that image as a PNG file in the Screenshots subfolder of your Pictures folder.
Windows key+Shift+S dims the screen and opens the Snipping Tool app, displaying a toolbar at the top border of the screen with four options that you can use to capture all or part of the current display, as shown in Figure 6-20.
Figure 6-20 The Snipping Tool app allows you to capture all or part of a Windows 11 screen.
From left to right, these options allow you to specify any of the following types of snips:
Rectangular Mode Click to define one corner of the area you want to capture and then drag diagonally, releasing the mouse when you reach the opposite corner of the rectangular area.
Freeform Mode Click and drag in any direction to define an irregular shape.
Window Mode After selecting this option, move the mouse pointer over the window you want to capture until it appears undimmed and then click.
Fullscreen Mode Click anywhere to capture the entire display.
When you finish your capture, your selection is copied to the Clipboard and a notification appears in the lower-right corner of the screen and in the notification center. Click that notification to open your saved capture in the Snipping Tool app. There, you can annotate or crop the capture and then save the results as a file, paste it into another app, or print it.
Using Maps
Mapping applications have long been one of the indispensable tools of modern life. Microsoft’s modern Maps app is a competent alternative to web-based options; it allows you to explore an unfamiliar city, plot a road trip, find a restaurant or a bank, print a set of turn-by-turn directions to take with you on the road, or just enjoy aerial views of the world or your neighborhood.
On first run, Maps asks for permission to track your location information. If you consent, Maps plants a marker at your current location. Tapping Show My Location (the target-shaped button in the toolbar on the right side of the screen) at any time displays your current location, assuming the app knows where that is. (The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Home performs the same function.)
Searching for places and services
To find a location, click the Search tool at the left of the menu bar or press Ctrl+F. You can type an address, the name of a person or business in your contacts list, or the name of a place known to Maps—an institution or a restaurant, for example. As shown in Figure 6-21, Maps displays the location on the map, one or more street-side pictures, and other interesting information.
Figure 6-21 Use the icons under the What’s Nearby heading to find restaurants, hotels, parking, and useful stops near your search location.
Controls on the right of the menu bar allow you to change the display (from Road to Aerial, for example) and to save places to your Microsoft account so you can revisit them on a different device when signed in using the same account. The vertical toolbar on the right side of the map allows you to tilt the map view, change its orientation, or zoom in and out. (If you zoom in far enough in Road view, you see street numbers on the outlines of individual buildings.)
Getting directions
Even if you plan to use the navigation options in your mobile device or your car to help you get from Point A to Point B, it can be useful to look at your route before you leave. Doing so can give you a “big picture” view of where you’re going.
To get directions, click the Directions button in the upper-left corner (to the right of the Search button) and then select your starting and ending points. (One of them might already be in place if you just searched for it.) Click Get Directions to display a set of route alternatives in a drop-down list. Each destination includes an estimated travel time and a color-coded route on the map. You can change the route details to show estimated time if you drive, take mass transit, or walk.
Click or tap the left side of a route listing to see step-by-step directions. Click or tap Go to see and hear turn-by-turn instructions. Note, though, that using turn-by-turn directions is only practical on a device that’s equipped with a GPS.
Downloading maps for offline use
If you’re out and about without a data connection for your portable device, you can still use maps that you previously downloaded. To take advantage of this feature, go to Settings > Apps > Offline Maps. Choose a region and then click Download.
Maps are updated frequently. To ensure that you have the most recent data, go to Settings > Apps > Offline Maps > Map Updates and select Update Automatically When Plugged In And On Wi-Fi.