You Can Add a Windows-style Start Menu to MacOS
The Mac doesn't have a start menu like Windows, but that wasn't always entirely true. In the '90s, Macs offered a list of applications in the Apple Menu, like this:
Credit: Justin Pot via InfiniteMac.orgThat's a distant memory at this point-it's been 25 years-so we probably shouldn't count on Apple to bring this feature back. The good news: a free application called XMenu, which I found via App Addict, brings this feature back, more or less. In some ways it's actually better than the vintage option.
Load XMenu and a single menu bar icon, which looks like the Mac Applications icon, will be added. You can click this to browse your Applications folder.
Credit: Justin PotIt's not a perfect start menu replacement, especially if you have a lot of apps, but you can organize things a little. Any applications that in are folders will show up as a sub-menu, meaning you can organize things a little by putting applications into particular folders within Finder.
Credit: Justin PotYou can also add more icons in the settings. There's support for your Documents and Home folder, meaning you can use this to browse all of your files.
Credit: Justin PotThere's also support for the Developer and Snippets folder, if you're the kind of user who uses those, and a User-Defined folder which you can fill with whatever you want. You can create an alias of any folder in Finder by right-clicking and then clicking Create Alias. You can drag various aliases over ~/Library/Application Support/XMenu/Custom to build your own custom menu that includes all the folders you care about most. It takes a little more time, granted, but it will work exactly the way you want.