Summary
Windows 11 is a $140 OS, and yet, there are things it still can’t do. And no, I’m not talking about anything obscure or niche. I’m talking about basic, everyday tools that most people actually need. A password manager, a storage analyzer, a file converter, desktop widgets — there’s a lot that’s missing. Microsoft just hasn’t bothered with most of these, which means most of us have to rely on third-party apps to fill the gap. KeePassXC Credential Manager could use an update It’s 2026, and Windows still doesn’t have a dedicated password manager. Yes, Credential Manager exists, and technically, it stores passwords. But technically, so can a sticky note. It’s so bad that it’s not even worth comparing it with an actual password manager app like KeePassXC. KeePassXC is a free, open-source app that saves your password in an encrypted database locally. There’s no monthly subscription you have to worry about, and it even has a browser extension that handles autofill safely. If you want something that’s modern and syncs across devices without the hassle, Bitwarden is another great option. It has everything a paid password manager offers, minus a mandatory subscription. WizTree Analyzing storage shouldn’t require an app Storage is something most Windows users have to manage at some point. Windows has tools like Storage Sense and Disk Cleanup, but they can’t really help you track down apps and personal files taking gigabytes of storage. WizTree is a free tool that scans your entire drive and gives you a breakdown of what’s eating your space. It barely takes more than a few seconds to scan and shows a treemap that gives you a visual breakdown of files and folders taking most storage. This makes it easy to spot the biggest space hoggers. I recently ran it on my PC, and it helped me find around 165 GB of Audacity cache files that had been sitting there for months. So yes, a proper storage analyzer is what Windows lacks and WizTree is exactly that. Rainmeter Who doesn’t love widgets? Windows 11 brought back widgets, but they have two major problems. They live in a separate panel, and they also show you news you didn’t ask for. Unsurprisingly, nobody really seems to care about it at this point. Rainmeter is a free app that shows what widgets should be like. It lets you place fully customizable widgets directly on your desktop so they’re visible at a glance. You can put in system stats, clock, weather, music controls, and basically anything you need. There’s a slight learning curve to setting it up, but there are thousands of pre-made skins, so you’ll almost certainly find something you like. Twinkle Tray Changing brightness should be easy This may not apply to everyone, but if you use an external monitor, you already know the pain. Windows just doesn’t let you control the brightness of your external displays, which means you have to use those clunky physical buttons on your monitor any time you need to make an adjustment. Twinkle Tray is a free app that helps with that. It sits in your system tray and gives you sliders for controlling brightness, contrast, and volume levels for all your external displays. You can adjust them all individually or together, and there’s support for custom hotkeys. Heck, it even lets you schedule brightness changes based on the time of day. File Converter We all need it at some point Unlike Twinkle Tray, this one isn’t niche at all. Most of us need to convert files every now and then — a Word to PDF, a PNG to JPG, or a FLAC to MP3. Windows has no built-in way to do most of these things. Sure, you can convert images using Paint and Photos, but it’s not exactly quick. And converting a bunch of files at once is something you can only dream of. File Converter is a free app that lives inside your context menu. You right-click a file, pick a format and it converts. That’s it. There’s nothing to learn, no accounts to create, and no ads you have to put up with. Most importantly, it supports a wide range of formats across audio, video, image, and documents. QuickLook File previews made easy If there’s one macOS feature I’ve always wanted Windows to have, it’s this one. QuickLook adds spacebar previews to Windows, which lets you preview any photo, video, or document without opening it in its default app. That means you don’t have to wait for Adobe Acrobat or Media Player to load any time you want to glance at a PDF or play a video clip. Sure, File Explorer already has thumbnails and a preview pane, but those aren’t always enough. To be fair, Microsoft has added this functionality with PowerToys’ Peek, but it’s not something that comes pre-installed. But if you have installed it, you don’t need QuickLook.