Suggested what? Microsoft deprecates suggested actions in Windows

Remember suggested actions? Microsoft introduced the feature in mid-2022 in Insider builds of Windows 11 and rolled it out to stable systems later on.

The core idea behind the feature was simple: highlight certain text in Windows and the operating system suggests actions based on the highlighted string. Highlight a phone number and you get a call option. Select date or time, and you get an option to add an event to a calendar.

That is all there was to it and Microsoft did not improve the feature since its introduction. Microsoft never added support for additional types of data. No email or physical addresses to write to or look up, no chat names, or anything else that might come to mind.

Suggested actions are out

Today, Microsoft added suggested actions to the list of deprecated features. The company writes:

Suggested actions that appear when you copy a phone number or future date in Windows 11 are deprecated and will be removed in a future Windows 11 update.

Deprecated features remain in Windows for the time being but will be removed eventually. Features that are put on the list do not receive major updates anymore and it is very rare for a feature to be taken off the list.

In other words: expect suggested actions to be removed in a future update for Windows 11.

Is it a big loss? I disabled the feature on all systems and do not know anyone who found it useful. Yes, chance is that some users found it useful.

Considering that it saves you a few clicks at most, provided that the programs that you use to call or plan events are supported, it is probably a minority of users that will miss it.

Tip: you can check out this guide on Ghacks to find out how to turn off suggested actions in Windows.

Closing Words

When Microsoft announced suggested actions, I did not really see a big use case for it. Phone names and date / time strings support limited it from the get-go and it saved users just a few clicks in the best case. Usage must have been low, as Microsoft never improved the original feature.

Now it is your turn. Did you use suggested actions? Or did you disable it or never even realize that it was there in first place?