Microsoft is testing a revamped battery icon in Windows 11. Using colors (green, yellow, red), it should be clearer how much battery percentage you have left.
The battery icon has long been part of the right half of the taskbar in Windows, but it doesn’t make you much wiser about your laptop’s battery level. Microsoft wants to change that. Part of the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3000 is a revamped battery icon.
Green, yellow, red
The battery icon uses colors to display the battery level. Microsoft here chooses the logical options of green, yellow and red. With normal use and a well-filled battery, the indicator will turn black. Green means you are charging and the battery is in good condition.
If the indicator turns yellow, that’s a first warning that it’s time to get a charger handy. This will happen when you’re still at about 20 percent (and not 86 percent, as in the image above): the time when Windows turns on battery saving. The color “red” is rarely good news on a laptop, and a red battery bar means you urgently need to recharge. If you still find an exact percentage clearer, you can enable it through settings.
Microsoft is testing the new battery icon through the Insiders channel. Count on a few more months when the feature will roll out widely with an update. With the latest Windows update, things once again went awry. The January updates for Windows 11 and Windows 10 cause headphones and webcams to stop working.