What you need to know
- The Microsoft Store App Awards winners were just announced.
- The Windows community nominated applications and then selected their favorites through online voting.
- Microsoft also highlighted several Editor's Choice Awards winners from the Microsoft Store.
Microsoft recently announced the best apps available through the Microsoft Store, as selected by the Windows community. After accepting nominations earlier this year, Microsoft opened voting for its awards in May 2022. The tech giant has now shared the winners of the awards, which are split into several categories.
Utility
Two apps share the top spot within the utility category, ShareX and Speedtest by Ookla. ShareX is a staple on Windows. It was one of the first apps I reviewed back when I joined Windows Central. It's received updates since then, but its focus has remained the same. ShareX lets you capture or record any area of your screen by pressing a single key.
Ookla is a popular tool for testing a PC's network connection speed.
File Management
This category also has two winners, Files and Rufus. We've followed the development of Files for quite some time. It's a third-party file explorer with a design that fits in well on Windows 11. The app is optimized for navigation with touch or a mouse and keyboard.
Rufus is a tool that helps users create and format bootable USB flash drives. A tool like Rufus makes it easier to install Windows 10 from USB with UEFI support.
Open Platform
Microsoft allowed the community to select three winners for this category, which focuses on improving Windows. Auto Dark Mode can automatically swap your PC from light mode to dark mode depending on the time of day. EarTrumpet is a volume control app that adds a flyout for controlling different apps and content on your PC. ModernFlyouts replaces the dated volume slider UI with a modern version.
Microsoft Store Editor's Choice Awards
In addition to having awards selected by users, Microsoft highlighted a handful of specific apps:
- Entertainment – Video: Disney+ (opens in new tab)
- Entertainment – Audio and Music: Spotify (opens in new tab)
- Creativity – Graphics and 3D: Canva (opens in new tab)
- Creativity – Audio and Video: Wondershare Filmora (opens in new tab)
- Productivity: LiquidText (opens in new tab)
- Social: Discord (opens in new tab)
You can read about all of the apps as well as the runner-ups in each category on Microsoft's blog post about the awards.
Sean Endicott is the news writer for Windows Central. If it runs Windows, is made by Microsoft, or has anything to do with either, he's on it. Sean's been with Windows Central since 2017 and is also our resident app expert. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com.
