General

In the general settings, you’ll find six sections: Network Settings, Personalization, TV & Display Options, Online Safety & Family, Volume & audio Output, and Power mode & startup. Each has expanded menus of course, but below you can read a little more about each and the reasons you might want to visit them.

• Network settings – Your standard assortment of network settings. However, here you can test specific connections for things like remote play, your standard network connections and speed, multiplayer connections, and bandwidth usage. You can also go offline in this menu and adjust other network settings,
• Personalization – This menu has shortcuts to it in various places, but here you can customize the homepage guide, profiles, the color and background of your dashboard, the theme and how it moves with each section on your dashboard, and this is where you can designate the console as your Home Xbox
• TV & display options – Here you’ll find options to calibrate your TV, change the resolution, see the 4K TV details, and more. 4K TV Details will tell you if your TV can support 4K UHD (60Hz) and if it can support 120Hz. If your TV is supposed to support 4K UHD 120Hz but Xbox says it can’t, make sure you’re using an HDMI 2.1 cable (your Xbox Series X came with one). Your TV may also have additional settings that need to be changed.

• Online safety & family – In this menu you can manage your privacy settings and data collection for the selected profile you have logged in. The Family settings section is where you can set some classic Parental Controls (see the page for more set-up information).
• Volume & audio output – Here you can change party chat output options, speaker audio and headset audio formats.
• Power mode & startup – Tired of someone turning on your Xbox by saying “Xbox on”? This is where you change that. You can also “turn off storage” when the Xbox is off, select the power mode, turn off or on the startup chime, perform a full shutdown, restart the Series X, and more.

Account

Here you can manage your individual account as well as other accounts on your system.

• Sign-in, security & passkey – This is where you can set whether or not an account has instant sign-in when the Xbox starts. You can also set the active controller to automatically sign in a user.
• Payment & billing – View your order history, add a payment option, and see the current balance of your Microsoft account on this page. You can also see your current primary payment option.
• Linked social accounts – In this tab you can link Discord, Twitter, and Facebook.
• Subscriptions – See what subscriptions you have active and which are cancelled.
• Privacy & online safety – Manage Xbox Live, App, Message, privacy and Data Collection.
• Family settings – The Family settings section is where you can set some classic Parental Controls (see the page for more set-up information).
• Content restrictions – There is one setting here: Access to content. You can choose what sort of content ratings the account can access.
• Remove accounts – Just as it says, select this to remove an account on your Series X.

System

In the system settings you’ll find the expected customization options for console updates, info, storage, time, language, and more.

• Console Info – Name your Xbox, check the serial number, and choose whether or not you allow optional data collection in this menu.
• Storage – Clear local saved games and see other storage information.
• Update – Think your system is out of date? Check out this menu.
• Signed-out content restrictions – Create a guest key in this menu.
• Language & location – Change your language and region settings here.
• Backup & transfer – Back up your console’s settings to an external storage device or perform a network transfer in this menu.
• Time – Change your time settings here.

Devices & connections

Check out the settings for all things that interact with your Xbox, like accessories, remotes, and more.

• Accessories – Select this to launch Xbox Accessories, an app that allows you to configure and test your connected Xbox accessories. Useful for seeing if that button your pressing really is broken or not.
• Media remote – This setting section is specifically designed for changing the OneGuide button on any media remote compatible with Xbox.
• Remote features – This allows your Xbox to connect to all sorts of features, including the Xbox app and remote play. You can also test remote play here.
• Disc – There are two options to turn on or off here: “Play disc automatically” and “Resume playback.”
• Digital assistants – If you set up a Digital Assistant (Google, Alexa) you can use it to turn on and off your console, launch games, and more. In order to start setup you need to visit this menu and select “Enable digital assistants” to get started.
• Blu-ray – Change your language preferences, storage, Enable or disable BD Live, and more.
• Mouse – Change your pointer speed and switch the primary and secondary buttons.

Preferences

These settings can make your time with Xbox more to your liking through notifications and other features.

• Notifications – Don’t like notification banners? Or notification position or timing?
• Idle options – Choose how long it takes for your screen to dim and change your idle options in this menu.
• Capture & share – Change your game clip resolution, automatic upload, capture location, and more.
• Break reminder – Set an internal timer that notifies you when to take a break.
• Activity feed – Choose whether or not you share achievements automatically.

Ease of Access

Access features like Narrator, Magnifier, and more in this menu.

• Narrator – Turn on the Narrator screen reader, edit controller and keyboard shortcuts, and more.
• Controller – Change button mapping, vibration settings, and copilot settings.
• Magnifier – Turn on and customize the magnifier in this menu. The magnifier allows you to zoom in on part of the screen.
• Game transcription – Toggle the settings for speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and “Let games read to me.”
• Closed captioning – Turn on closed captioning and choose the style.
• Audio – Turn on mono output and combine all audio channels.
• High contrast – Choose whether or not high contrast is on.