Windows ships with a set of default apps that cover the basics – but for most of them, "the basics" is exactly their ceiling. Some are genuinely useful, some are dead weight, and some are just functional enough to make you forget that better options exist.
These are the 11 built-in Microsoft apps you'll find on a fresh Windows 11 install – and the popular alternatives that do the job better.
Video editing: Alternatives to Clipchamp
This video editing app is designed to make video creation on Windows 11 accessible to everyone through its timeline-based interface, from social media creators to business professionals.
Clipchamp is also powered with AI features. It can automatically assemble a video from your raw clips and photos. It includes a text-to-speech generator with lifelike voices, and a subtitle generator that supports over 80 languages.
CapCut is a popular choice for creating short clips for Instagram, TikTok and other social media, with a library of trending music and viral effects that are more current and varied than Clipchamp's stock library.
Shotcut is free and open source, and the better pick if you need a substantially more capable editor. It supports a wide range of media formats, GPU-accelerated effects, and video up to 4K resolution – enough for professionally put-together results without paying for anything.
For anyone wanting to go further, DaVinci Resolve is free and widely considered one of the best video editors available at any price. It includes professional-grade color grading, audio mixing, and visual effects tools.
File Explorer replacement and alternatives
For better and for worse, the primary app to access your files and folders hasn't changed much across Windows versions. In its current iteration, File Explorer has a tabbed UI, and a home page that highlights recent files in your local PC drive and OneDrive. Under the hood, Microsoft's developers have apparently been focusing on improving the performance and stability of File Explorer.
For power users, File Explorer can still feel a bit limited. Many alternatives have been created to satisfy certain file management workflows:
Directory Opus is one of the most capable File Explorer replacements available. It supports dual-pane navigation, advanced metadata editing, synchronized scrolling, and a search system far more sophisticated than File Explorer's. It's a paid app, but widely considered worth it for power users.
Double Commander is the go-to free, open-source alternative for those who want a dual-pane layout. It's frequently recommended as the closest thing to Directory Opus without the price tag.
The Files app is a good pick if you value a design that feels native to Windows 11. It's open source, features a robust file tagging system, and supports themes.
Total Commander is one of the longest-standing and most recommended file managers among power users. It features a dual-pane layout, built-in FTP client, archive handling, multi-rename with regex support, and an extensive plugin ecosystem. It's shareware, but free to evaluate indefinitely.
File Pilot is a newer option that's been in beta for months, but it's drawing strong praise for its speed and modern design. It supports unlimited customizable panes and tabs, making it one of the more flexible options for managing files across multiple folders simultaneously.
One Commander uses DirectX for rendering, which makes it feel noticeably snappier than File Explorer, and includes a built-in batch renaming tool.
Media Player alternatives
Media Player is the replacement for both the legacy Windows Media Player and Groove Music apps. It organizes your music and video libraries stored on your PC. During music play, Media Player displays album art and has a mini-player mode. It lacks some features of its predecessors, such as DVD playback. Still, Media Player includes a 2000s-era style interface you can select, and it can rip your CDs.
Since most media consumption nowadays is done through streaming services like Netflix, Spotify, or YouTube, using a dedicated media player app may seem a bit niche – until you have a local library worth caring about. For high-fidelity audio, large video collections, or offline playback, these are the better options.
MPV is extremely lightweight with a minimalist UI. You can simply drag and drop a media file onto it to play. It's also a favorite among videophiles for its superior rendering quality, with support for GPU-based output via OpenGL, Vulkan, and Direct3D.
The ever-reliable VLC has been the go-to for playing video files for decades, and remains the most popular choice for good reason – it handles virtually any format and requires no configuration out of the box.
PotPlayer is worth knowing about if you want something more capable than VLC without sacrificing the free price tag. It's free, Windows-only, and handles virtually every format out of the box. Where it stands out is in its rendering options and customization depth: subtitle handling, audio track management, and hardware acceleration are all more configurable than what VLC offers. It can feel overwhelming at first, but for enthusiasts it's hard to beat.
For music collectors: to manage your song library, consider MusicBee. It handles auto-organization and tagging, and can sync with your smartphone and other mobile devices.
Messaging: Alternatives to Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams offers text chat and video calls, with support for both personal and work accounts. The unified version that comes with Windows 11 lets you sign into personal and work accounts simultaneously, switching between them from the same app. It also absorbed Skype's user base after Microsoft retired the app a while ago.
But, there are several alternates to choose from...
If your chat group comprises friends, gamers, or creatives, Discord is the go-to. It offers always-on channels and a customizable UI that feels more social and less corporate than Teams.
For quick, less formal chatting with family and friends, there are the desktop app and web browser versions of Telegram and WhatsApp.
For work: Slack is widely considered more flexible and less cluttered than Teams, with a superior ecosystem of third-party integrations. It works especially well for teams that don't live inside the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
Zoom is usually favored for meetings with several people because it requires less friction for guests to join without an account.
Alternatives to Microsoft To Do
This cloud-based task manager is the successor to the beloved but long-gone Wunderlist that Microsoft bought in 2015. Microsoft To Do uses an intelligent engine to suggest tasks from your various lists, helping you to focus on immediate priorities. It features due dates, file attachments, reminders, and sub-tasks. It also now supports Natural Language Input for setting dates (e.g., type "Buy eggs every Tuesday at 10 am" and it'll schedule this for you).
To Do syncs with Outlook, letting you turn emails into to-dos, and can extract tasks from team projects in Microsoft Planner.
If you need more advanced features in a to-do app:
Any.do prompts you to review and schedule your activities at the start of your day, making it a good fit if you prefer a guided, lightweight experience over a feature-heavy one.
TickTick packs a Pomodoro timer, calendar view, and habit tracker all in one window – it's the power user's pick, and at roughly 40% cheaper than Todoist on annual billing, it's also the better value.
Todoist is renowned for its Natural Language Input – the same technology Microsoft To Do now uses – and stands out for its clean, minimal interface and broad third-party integrations.
If you work primarily in Gmail and Google Calendar, Google Tasks is the natural fit. It lives in Gmail's right-side panel, so you can drag emails directly into a task list without switching apps.
Alternatives to the Outlook Windows App
This app is the result of Microsoft kludging together the legacy desktop version of Outlook and the Mail & Calendar app. Though the old version of Outlook is still available on Windows 11, Microsoft wants you to use New Outlook as your primary email app.
Because it's built on a web-based architecture, the UI of New Outlook is nearly the same as that of Outlook.com. New Outlook is also very integrated into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, so you can work on Excel or Word files with other people from the inbox.
The tradeoff is that when you connect any account (including Gmail, Yahoo, or a company IMAP server), your credentials, emails, calendar events, and contacts are synchronized and stored on Microsoft's cloud servers, which has raised privacy concerns. Furthermore, the web-based platform means the New Outlook is slow.
eM Client is perhaps the closest thing to the classic desktop Outlook experience, with a similar layout and support for email, calendar, and contacts in one app.
Mailbird has a beautiful minimalist design. It can integrate other apps such as Google Calendar, Slack and WhatsApp into its sidebar, making it a capable hub beyond just email.
Mozilla Thunderbird remains the go-to free, open-source option. It has a tabbed UI and is highly customizable through a large library of add-ons. A major interface overhaul landed in 2023 and it moved to monthly releases in 2025, so it's more actively maintained than its reputation sometimes suggests.
For strong privacy and security, Proton Mail offers end-to-end encryption and stores nothing in plaintext – a meaningful contrast to New Outlook's cloud-sync approach.
Alternatives to OneDrive
Microsoft's cloud storage and sync service is deeply embedded in Windows, letting you upload and access files through File Explorer. Beyond simple storage, OneDrive enables multiple users to work together on Excel, PowerPoint or Word documents in real time.
Dropbox is the obvious longtime alternative, though its free tier is stingy at just 2GB. That's less than half of OneDrive's 5GB.
Google Drive is OneDrive's most direct competitor, especially if you prefer Google Workspace over Microsoft 365. Google gives you 15GB of free storage – three times what OneDrive offers, and real-time collaboration across Docs, Sheets, and Slides is seamless.
IDrive is worth considering if your priority is backup over sync. It supports multi-device backup from a single account, offers 30-version file history, and has a 10GB free plan. It's more of a dedicated backup service than a Google Drive or OneDrive equivalent, so set expectations accordingly.
If you need to store highly sensitive documents: Proton Drive uses end-to-end, zero-knowledge encryption, meaning not even the service provider can access your files. A meaningful step up from OneDrive's at-rest encryption.
Alternatives to Photos
Over its versions, the Photos app has stuck with a mostly clean UI. It features filmstrip-style navigation to help you quickly scroll through your images, and a mode that lets you compare two or more photos in the same window.
Photos has evolved to include quite a few image editing tools, some driven by AI, such as removing elements from images, semantic search (which lets you find an image by describing it), and upscaling. Though Photos works well enough for casual use, it starts to feel limited once you're dealing with a large image library.
If you need to manage a massive library of images, digiKam is worth a serious look. This free, open-source app is built specifically for that task, with digital asset management features: tagging, facial recognition, and metadata editing. Those features rival what you'd find in paid tools like Lightroom.
FastStone is the better pick for photographers who need to cull through large photo folders quickly. Its full-screen mode provides an uncluttered viewing experience, with menus appearing only when you move the cursor to the edge of the screen, and it lets you compare up to four photos side by side. Batch conversion and renaming are also built in.
IrfanView is a Windows classic: fast, lightweight and able to instantly open almost any image format that you throw at it. It's the go-to if you just want something that opens instantly and gets out of the way.
XnView is a solid middle ground between a fast viewer and a full library manager. It supports over 500 image formats, handles batch conversion and renaming, and includes metadata editing. It's more capable than IrfanView for organization, without the complexity of digiKam.
Tech support: Alternatives to Quick Assist
This tool is primarily meant for helping someone troubleshoot their Windows PC over the internet. It includes a chat window, a tool for drawing on the recipient's screen, and a virtual laser pointer to guide their attention.
Quick Assist works well for quick Windows-to-Windows help where both people are present at their machines. But if you need to access or control a PC remotely with nobody at the other end (or need cross-platform support), there are alternatives with more robust features.
RustDesk is a free, open-source remote desktop app that's been gaining serious traction as an alternative to AnyDesk and TeamViewer. It works out of the box without any setup, but its standout feature is the option to self-host your own relay server – keeping your remote sessions entirely off third-party infrastructure. Cross-platform support covers Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.
AnyDesk is well regarded for its low-latency remote experience, which can feel close to sitting in front of the machine at the other end.
If you're using Chrome and so is the PC you want to access, Chrome Remote Desktop is a free and simple option that requires no extra software. That said, it's less reliable than other apps in terms of establishing connections with ease.
Splashtop is a strong pick for creatives and those who need smooth media playback during a remote session.
TeamViewer remains one of the most full-featured options, with high-speed file transfer and session recording. It's free for personal use, though its commercial licensing is among the pricier in the category.
Screenshot grabbing: Alternatives to Snipping Tool
This default app doesn't just capture images, but you can also use it to record high-def video and audio of what you're doing on Windows. It has OCR so you can copy text that appears in a screenshot, and a minimalist UI that stays out of your way.
There's nothing wrong with Snipping Tool in its current form: It maintains a minimalist UI that stays out of your way, and effectively lets you annotate a screenshot that you just took with its pen, highlighter, and shape tools. It's still excellent for these quick tasks.
Greenshot emphasizes simplicity in its UI. You access it from the system tray, and it works efficiently if you just want to capture a region on your screen.
ShareX is for the power user. This free and open source tool can capture entire web pages, record GIFs, and even execute a custom script to perform an action on the screenshot after you take it. There's a learning curve, but nothing else at this price (free) comes close in terms of raw capability.
Monosnap is another power user tool that's worth a look if your main need is capturing and instantly sharing screenshots with a link. It combines capture, annotation, and cloud upload in one step.
Snagit is the paid option worth considering if you create tutorials or documentation. It lets you organize screenshots into visual step-by-step guides and record video walkthroughs with webcam overlays.
Alternatives to Sticky Notes
This lightweight app lets you create post-it-style notes on the Windows desktop for quick ideas, reminders, or task lists. The latest version has a "pop out" mode to keep notes on top of other windows, and it now supports images, rich text formatting, and touchscreen and pen input.
It's also tied into the OneNote ecosystem, syncing your notes to the cloud so you can access them from OneNote's mobile and web versions as well.
Simple Sticky Notes is free and focuses on customization. It lets you change note colors, fonts and transparency levels.
Stickies is another free, lightweight option along the same lines, with a similarly minimal footprint and straightforward configuration.
For a more pro-level experience: Notezilla lets you attach notes to documents, folders or websites. These attached notes reappear automatically whenever you open that file or page again.
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Windows keeps improving some of its default apps, but the third-party ecosystem always moves faster. Do you have a favorite app that replaces a default in Windows 11? – or if we missed one worth knowing about – let us know in the comments.