How to Pin Games from Epic Games Launcher to Start

[WaggishOhio383]

If you use the Epic Games Launcher, you may have noticed that it does not allow you to pin any of your games to start. And if you're like me, you like having access to all your games from your start menu, rather than cluttering up your desktop with shortcuts. Fortunately, there is a pretty easy workaround to this problem that will allow you to manually pin games from the Epic Games Launcher to your start menu. This tutorial will show you the step by step process of doing this. I've included images of each step inside spoilers in case the instructions are confusing.

 

First, you'll need to have a desktop shortcut made for the game. If you don't have one, open the Epic Games launcher and navigate to the library tab. Underneath the game cover art, and to the right of the title, you should see a little three dot icon. Click on this icon, and it should bring up a drop-down menu. From this menu, select "Create a Shortcut". You should do this for all the games you don't already have a desktop shortcut for.

Spoiler

 

Now that you have all the icons on your desktop, you can close out of the Epic Games Launcher. For the next step, you'll need to press Windows + R. This should bring up a small window titled "Run". In this window, type or copy in "shell:start menu", then select "OK". If done correctly, a file explorer window should now appear titled "Start Menu".

Spoiler

 

Now that you have that folder open, simply drag the shortcuts from your desktop into the file explorer window, and you're done!

Spoiler

 

One last thing to note is that after doing this, the games may not appear in your start menu immediately. Sometimes they will show up after a few minutes. However, if you want to speed up the process, restarting your computer will make them appear. Another thing you should know is that if you uninstall the games, the start menu shortcuts won't go away on their own. You will have to go back into the start menu folder using the "shell:start menu" command, and delete the shortcuts yourself. Again, you may have to restart your computer for the icon to disappear from the start menu.

Spoiler

Game shows up in start menu after a restart, and can be pinned as a tile if desired

 

 

Hopefully, this tutorial helped you, and if you have any suggestions to improve it please let me know!

[pewnit]

Thank you. This was very helpful. 

[sograyish]

Thanks for this but I tried it and I still could not do it because when it went to the folder after "shell:start menu" I just didnt see the games shortcuts that I had made already. any suggestions as to why they didn't show and can I make them appear somehow

[Mark Kaine]

Hey, that's how i added some Steam games into my start menu... 

(i also didn't do the "shell hack" i just found the folder, no idea where it is... i have a short memory...)

 

umm, it was also kinda weird some games required an "internet shortcut"... i have no idea what this is, but since i already had some i just copied and renamed those and changed the target,  haha, take that papa DRM Steam! 

 

 

On 12/18/2021 at 10:21 AM, sograyish said:

Thanks for this but I tried it and I still could not do it because when it went to the folder after "shell:start menu" I just didnt see the games shortcuts that I had made already. any suggestions as to why they didn't show and can I make them appear somehow

you need to copy or move the shortcuts into the "start menu" folder ... they wont appear there otherwise...

 

 

@WaggishOhio383 BTW couldn't you make a folder in start menu > programs called Epic or NotSoEpic  wouldn't that be more elegant? 

 

*i checked where it is (open file location) = )

[Benlo Revan]

(I know its an old topic, but it came up in a google search for "pin fortnite to windows 11 taskbar") What ended up working for me was to open Fortnite, alt-tab out, right-click the Fortnite icon on the task bar and Pin to taskbar, then right-click the same Fortnite icon again, right-click the Fortnite icon in the submenu, right-click Properties, and on the Shortcut tab, change the file name of Target so it ends with FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping_EAC.exe instead of just FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping.exe. You see the EAC splash twice if Epic games launcher isn't already running when you click it, and you see two Fortnite icons on the taskbar when Fortnite is running, but that's good enough for me, since I didn't want the shortcut on the desktop and didn't specifically need it in the start menu, just on the taskbar.

[zoftxx]

On 12/24/2022 at 10:08 PM, Benlo Revan said:

(I know its an old topic, but it came up in a google search for "pin fortnite to windows 11 taskbar") What ended up working for me was to open Fortnite, alt-tab out, right-click the Fortnite icon on the task bar and Pin to taskbar, then right-click the same Fortnite icon again, right-click the Fortnite icon in the submenu, right-click Properties, and on the Shortcut tab, change the file name of Target so it ends with FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping_EAC.exe instead of just FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping.exe. You see the EAC splash twice if Epic games launcher isn't already running when you click it, and you see two Fortnite icons on the taskbar when Fortnite is running, but that's good enough for me, since I didn't want the shortcut on the desktop and didn't specifically need it in the start menu, just on the taskbar.

Yeah I searched the same thing and this popped up, thank you so much!. I've been looking around for a way to pin fortnite to the taskbar since I didn't want it on my start menu or desktop.