Microsoft discontinues the People Bar feature

Windows 10 People Bar Icon

Starting with Windows 10 build 16184, Windows 10 includes the My People feature. It adds a special icon to the notification area of your taskbar and allows pinning your contacts directly to the taskbar, so you can start messaging, call or compose an email just with one click. It looks like Microsoft is about to remove the People bar from the OS.

"My People" is a special toolbar for the taskbar which shows icons of pinned contacts. Tip: See How to Pin Contacts to the taskbar in Windows 10. It  gives you quick access to messaging options via Email and Skype and aggregate information from Skype, Email, People and other apps which have collaboration tasks.

While this feature is available starting in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, it was initially planned for Windows 10 Creators Update, but the final build (15063) of this Windows version doesn't include this feature.

It provides a number of useful quick actions. For example, you can quickly create an email message by clicking the icon. Or, if you drag and drop a file on the pinned contact icon, it will be possible to share it quickly.

Starting in Windows 10 build 18298, the People icon is no longer enabled on the taskbar by default. Additionally, a tweet from Albacore, a guy known for being the trustful source of internal Microsoft news, reveals an upcoming change in the My People feature.  According to him,

It looks like Microsoft is not happy with the current implementation of the feature. Maybe, their telemetry data suggested them that it is not popular among users.

Personally, I always disable the People bar. I find no use for its features. What about you? Will you miss it?

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

7 thoughts on “Microsoft discontinues the People Bar feature”

  1. I did the same thing. I never used it. In fact Microsoft tends to filling up the taskbar. Besides the programs, that already run in backgriunbd (like onedrive) you have ink space, peoples, screen keyboard etc. Why not just enable a a kind of menu?

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