5 Tips for Mastering Internet Explorer’s Desktop Version

Previously, we have covered the steps in accessing the desktop version of Internet Explorer 11 and got acquainted with all the visible buttons and options available on both sides of the address bar but there’s more to these buttons especially “Favorites” the “Tools” than what meets the eye and that’s what we will be discussing in this tutorial. I turned each one of them into a tip so you can follow them systematically as you move through towards the bottom of this article.

1. Adding a Site to the Favorites List

If you want to keep a list of all your favorite sites which you can get to for accessing them quickly then you can add them to Internet Explorer’s “Favorites” section. To do this, simply click on the “Favorites” button at the right-hand side of the address box and the list of the websites you marked as “Favorite” will appear. To add a website to it, you will need to first open the site using Internet Explorer 11’s desktop version then click on the “Favorite” button. Once the list of Favorites appears, simply click on the “Add to favorites” button on top of the menu box and another set of options will appear. From these options, simply hit the one that says “Add to favorites…”.

After doing so, a small Window labeled “Add a Favorite” will appear where you can change the name that will appear on the Favorites section for the site that you are going to add and as well as save it in a location which you specified instead of the default location. Once you’re done making changes on these aspects, simply hit the “Add” button at the bottom.

After doing so, the website should appear on the “Favorites” list which you can access by clicking on the “Favorite” button. A shorter way of adding a website to the “Favorites” list is by pressing the Windows + D buttons. The screenshot below shows the websites which I added to the “Favorites” section on my Windows 8.1 machine.

2. Adding Website to the Favorites Bar

Another section where you can add your favorite websites into is the “Favorites bar”. The steps in doing this is very simple, click on “Favorite” then on the menu box that appears, click on the “Add to favorites” button located on top. After doing so, the options that appeared earlier when you added a website to the “Favorites” section will again appear but instead of  clicking on “Add to favorites…” you will need to click on the “Add to Favorites bar” this time.

After doing so, the website will appear on the “Favorites” bar which is located just below the address bar at the top portion of the screen.

3. Accessing Your Browser’s History

You might have visited a website earlier maybe a day or two or even a week ago but you forgot its name and didn’t remember to add it to favorites and you want to visit it again. You can find it by going to Internet Explorer’s browsing history. To visit this section, you will first need to click on the “Favorite” button located at the right hand portion of the address bar and on the menu box that appears, simply hit the “History” tab.

Unlike other browsers, Internet Explorer 11 lists your browsing history according to the days in a week grouping as you can see on the screenshot above so if you can still remember when you accessed the website then you can easily click on the day and look for it on the list that appears. Once you find it, simply click on it so you can finally open and add the site to the Favorites section or the Favorites bar.

4. Other Options Under the Favorite Button

When you click on the “Add to favorites” button located on the top portion of the menu box that appears when you click on “Favorite”, there are actually three other options that appears with “Add to favorites…” and “Add to Favorites bar” and they are “Add current tabs to favorites…”, “Import and Export” and “Organize favorites…”. If you opened multiple tabs which you want to add to favorites, simply click on “Add current tabs to favorites” and a small Window will appear which is labeled “Add Tabs to Favorites”. On this Window, you can assign a name on the tabs and decide where the folder will be created and stored. Once you’re done entering these required stuff, simply hit the “Add” button at the bottom of the Window and you’re done.

Next, the “Import and Export” option will allow you to get Internet Explorer’s settings into another browser or get the settings from another browser into Internet Explorer. If you already saved settings on a file then there’s also an option for importing settings from it as you can see on the screenshot below.

Lastly, you can organize your favorite sites by clicking on the “Organize favorites…” option. Once you do so, another Window will open which lists all the sites you marked as favorite and at the bottom, you will some buttons for organizing these sites. Just do whatever organization styles and tweaks that you want for the list and when you’re done, simply hit the “Close” button.

5. Exploring the Options Under Tools

Finally, we arrive at the last button on top of the Internet Explorer Window which is called “Tools”. If you click on the “Tools” button, you will be able to access a lot more options on a menu box which includes all basic and advanced tweaks for the browser but in this tutorial, we will only learn the basic ones. First, you can click on the menu that says “Print” and more options will appear under it which are “Print…”, “Print preview..” and “Page setup…”. You surely are familiar with all of these so just click on the one which you want to do to the current webpage that you opened with Internet Explorer.

Next, if you click on “File”, you will be able to access other options that are especially tailored for the the page you opened. Take time to explore each one of them and just follow the on screen instructions or input the stuff being asked in any of the option when you click on them.

Moving on next, you will find the “Zoom” option and beside it is the current zoom setting set for the website you opened. If you want to make changes on it, simply click on the option and select the zoom setting that you want from the options box that appears.

Lastly under the basic tweaks is the “Safety” option which gives some security setting both for your browsing session and as well as Internet Explorer as a whole. Click on it and you’ll be able to access nine available safety and security settings that are available. Internet Explorer is secure and safe in its default settings but if you think you need to tweaks some aspects of your browser’s security then you can simply access this option and make the necessary tweaks and changes.

That’s it! You are now ready to use IE 11’s desktop version to its fullest. Just master each option and learn how you can use them and you’ll surely love using Windows 8.1’s built-in browser every time you’re surfing the web!