Microsoft says Windows 11’s taskbar won’t get drag-and-drop, by design

Windows 10 users can easily move their taskbar using drag-and-drop with the mouse. With Windows 11, it isn’t quite so straightforward. Unfortunately, Microsoft says this is the result of a deliberate decision.

Since September 2026, Windows 11 users have been able to reposition the taskbar. It only took five years from Windows 11’s launch for the functionality to finally be added! And the reason for that was purely practical.

But it isn’t a perfect implementation. To move the Windows 11 taskbar, you have to go to Windows Settings → Personalization → Taskbar → Taskbar behavior → Taskbar position. There you must choose between “Left,” “Top,” “Right,” and “Bottom.” There’s a distinct lack of convenient drag-and-drop using the mouse as there was in Windows 10.

Microsoft has no plans to change this. “This is a deliberate design choice and not a missing feature,” explains Diego Baca, Vice President of Design at Microsoft, in a social media post.

I find headlines like these unnecessarily negative. Instead of saying “you still need” a third-party app, why not say “you can also use” one? It communicates the same information without framing everything as a shortcoming.