PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows experience for greater productivity. Inspired by the Windows 95 era PowerToys project, this reboot provides power users with utilities to squeeze more out of the Windows shell and customize it for their individual workflows.

What tools are included in PowerToys?

Microsoft keeps adding utilities to the suite, however the 21 main tools are: Always on Top, PowerToys Awake, Color Picker, FancyZones, File Explorer Add-ons, File Locksmith, Hosts File Editor, Image Resizer, Keyboard Manager, Mouse utilities, Mouse Without Borders, Peek, Paste as Plain Text, PowerRename, PowerToys Run, Quick Accent, Registry Preview, Screen Ruler, Shortcut Guide, Text Extractor, and Video Conference Mute.

What is the purpose of PowerToys?

PowerToys are smaller add-ons or utilities that can enhance and customize your Windows experience. Microsoft created PowerToys for power users looking for a bit more personalization and tweakability.

What are the two most useful tools in PowerToys?

PowerToys offers several handy tools for specific use cases, but two very popular ones are FancyZones, which lets you rearrange your window layout to run multiple apps on one screen, and PowerToys Run, which is a Spotlight-like launcher that includes quick search for apps and files in Windows.

Is Microsoft PowerToys free?

Yes, PowerToys is free and open-source.

Does PowerToys work on Windows 11?

PowerToys is compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11

Getting started

To kick the tires on the first two utilities, download the installer here. The main PowerToys service runs when Windows starts and a user logs in. When the service is running, a PowerToys icon appears in the system tray. Selecting the icon launches the PowerToys settings UI. The settings UI lets you enable and disable individual utilities and provides settings for each utility. There is also a link to the help doc for each utility. You can right click the tray icon to quit the Power Toys service.

PowerToys settings UI.Note that some PowerToys functionality requires running in an elevated process. Elevation is required to interact with and manipulate windows from processes that have a higher set of rights than the current user. This is why the PowerToys.exe requests elevation when launched.

If you find bugs or have suggestions, please open an issue in the Power Toys GitHub repo. The backlog for creating new utilities is here. You can provide feedback on the backlog to suggest new ideas or a different priority order by joining the backlog discussion in this issue.

Current PowerToy utilities

The currently available utilities include:

Crop And Lock

Crop And Lock allows you to crop a current application into a smaller window or just create a thumbnail. Focus the target window and press the shortcut to start cropping.

Mouse Without Borders

Control a set of machines using the same keyboard/mouse, share clipboard between the machines and transfer files between the machines.

Peek

A system-wide utility for Windows that allows you to preview file content without the need to open multiple applications or interrupt your workflow. It offers a seamless and quick file preview experience for various file types, including images, web pages, Markdown files, text files, and developer files.

Always on Top

Always on Top enables you to pin windows on top of all other windows with a quick key shortcut (â Win+Ctrl+T).

PowerToys Awake

PowerToys Awake is designed to keep a computer awake without having to manage its power & sleep settings. This behavior can be helpful when running time-consuming tasks, ensuring that the computer does not go to sleep or turns off its screens.

Color Picker

ColorPicker is a system-wide color picking utility activated with Win+Shift+C. Pick colors from any currently running application, the picker automatically copies the color into your clipboard in a set format. Color Picker also contains an editor that shows a history of previously picked colors, allows you to fine-tune the selected color and to copy different string representations. This code is based on Martin Chrzan's Color Picker.

FancyZones

FancyZones is a window manager that makes it easy to create complex window layouts and quickly position windows into those layouts.

File Explorer add-ons

File Explorer add-ons enable preview pane rendering in File Explorer to display SVG icons (.svg), Markdown (.md) and PDF file previews. To enable the preview pane, select the "View" tab in File Explorer, then select "Preview Pane".

Image Resizer

Image Resizer is a Windows Shell extension for quickly resizing images. With a simple right click from File Explorer, resize one or many images instantly. This code is based on Brice Lambson's Image Resizer.

Keyboard Manager

Keyboard Manager allows you to customize the keyboard to be more productive by remapping keys and creating your own keyboard shortcuts. This PowerToy requires Windows 10 1903 (build 18362) or later.

Mouse utilities

Mouse utilities add functionality to enhance your mouse and cursor. With Find My Mouse, quickly locate your mouse's position with a spotlight that focuses on your cursor. This feature is based on source code developed by Raymond Chen.

PowerRename

PowerRename enables you to perform bulk renaming, searching and replacing file names. It includes advanced features, such as using regular expressions, targeting specific file types, previewing expected results, and the ability to undo changes. This code is based on Chris Davis's SmartRename.

PowerToys Run

PowerToys Run can help you search and launch your app instantly - just press the shortcut Alt+Space and start typing. It is open source and modular for additional plugins. Window Walker is now included as well. This PowerToy requires Windows 10 1903 (build 18362) or later.

Shortcut Guide

Windows key shortcut guide appears when a user presses â Win+Shift+/ (or as we like to think, â Win+?) and shows the available shortcuts for the current state of the desktop. You can also change this setting and press and hold â Win.

Video Conference Mute

Video Conference Mute is a quick way to globally "mute" both your microphone and camera using â Win+Shift+Q while on a conference call, regardless of the application that currently has focus. This requires Windows 10 1903 (build 18362) or later.

Languages

Currently, PowerToys is available in the following languages: Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Turkish.

Community led and developed in the open

Our goal for the PowerToys project is for it to be an extension of the Windows power user community and for it to provide the functionality these users find most valuable. Our backlog of utilities is on GitHub, and we encourage the community to provide feedback on the backlog in this issue. Each utility has its own feature backlog. You can also contribute to the Windows shortcut guide backlog and the FancyZones backlog. For new utility suggestions, please create a new issue to discuss the idea.

What's New

Highlights

  • Awake Quality of Life changes, including changing the tray icon to reflect the current mode. Thanks @dend!
  • Changes to general GPO policies and new policies for Mouse Without Borders. The names for some intune policy configuration sets might need to be updated as seen in https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windows-dev-docs/pull/5045/files . Thanks @htcfreek!

General

  • Reordered GPO policies, making it easier to find some policies. Thanks @htcfreek!

Advanced Paste

  • Fixed CSV parser to support double quotes and escape delimiters when pasting as JSON. Thanks @GhostVaibhav!
  • Improved double quote handling in the CSV parser when pasting as JSON. Thanks @htcfreek!

Awake

  • Different modes will now show different icons in the system tray. Thanks @dend, and @niels9001 for the icon design!
  • Removed the dependency on Windows Forms and used native Win32 APIs instead for the tray icon. Thanks @dend and @BrianPeek!
  • Fixed an issue where the UI would become non-responsive after selecting no time for the timed mode. Thanks @dend!
  • Refactored code for easier maintenance. Thanks @dend!
  • The tray icon will now be shown when running Awake standalone to signal mode. Thanks @dend!
  • The tray icon tooltip shows how much time is left on the timer. Thanks @dend!
  • Added DPI awareness to the tray icon context menu. Thanks @dend!

Color Picker

  • Added support to using the mouse wheel to scroll through the color history. Thanks @Fefedu973!

File Explorer add-ons

  • Allow copying from the right-click menu in Monaco and Markdown previewers.

File Locksmith

  • Fixed a crash when there were a big number of entries being shown by moving the opened files of a process to another dialog.

Installer

  • Fixed the path where DSC module files were installed for the user-scope installer. (This was a hotfix for 0.82)

Mouse Without Borders

  • Disabled non supported options in the old Mouse Without Borders UI. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Added new GPO policies to control the use of some features. Thanks @htcfreek!

Peek

  • Allow copying from the right-click menu in Dev files and Markdown previews.

PowerToys Run

  • Fixed a crash on Windows 11 build 22000. (This was a hotfix for 0.82)
  • Blocked a transparency fix code from running on Windows 10, since it was causing graphical glitches. (This was a hotfix for 0.82)
  • Accept speed abbreviations like kilometers per hour (kmph) in the Unit Converter plugin. Thanks @GhostVaibhav!
  • Added settings to configure behavior of the "First week of year" and "First day of week" calculations in the DateTime plugin. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Fixed wrong initial position of the PowerToys Run when switching between monitors with different dpi values.
  • Started allowing interchangeable use of / and \ in the registry plugin paths.
  • Added support to automatic sign-in after rebooting with the System plugin. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Added suggested use example results to the Value Generator plugin. Thanks @azlkiniue!

Quick Accent

  • Added support for the Bulgarian character set. Thanks @octastylos-pseudodipteros!

Runner

  • Add code to handle release tags with an upper V when trying to detect new updates. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

Settings

  • Fixed the UI spacing in the "update available" card. Thanks @Agnibaan!
  • Fixed the information bars in the Mouse Without Borders settings page to hide when the module is disabled. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Improved consistency of the icons used in the Mouse Without Borders settings page. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Improved action keyword information bar padding in the PowerToys Run plugins section. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Fixed a crash in the dashboard when Keyboard Manager Editor settings file became locked.

Documentation

  • Added the RDP plugin to PowerToys Run thirdPartyRunPlugins.md docs. Thanks @anthony81799!
  • Added the GitHubRepo and ProcessKiller plugins to PowerToys Run thirdPartyRunPlugins.md docs. Thanks @8LWXpg!
  • Fixed a typo in the 0.82.0 release notes in README. Thanks @walex999!

Development

  • Disabled FancyZone UI tests, to unblock PRs. We plan to bring them back in the future. (This was a hotfix for 0.82)
  • Fixed an issue where flakiness in CI was causing the installer custom actions DLL from being signed. (This was a hotfix for 0.82)
  • Upgraded the Microsoft.Windows.Compatibility dependency to 8.0.7.
  • Upgraded the System.Text.Json dependency to 8.0.4.
  • Upgraded the Microsoft.Data.Sqlite dependency to 8.0.7.
  • Upgraded the MSBuildCache dependency to 0.1.283-preview. Thanks @dfederm!
  • Removed an unneeded /Zm compiler flag from Keyboard Manager Editor common build flags.
  • Fixed the winget publish action to handle upper case V in the tag name. Thanks @mdanish-kh!
  • Removed wildcard items from vcxproj files. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Removed the similar issues bot GitHub actions. Thanks @craigloewen-msft!
  • Fixed CODEOWNERS to better protect changes in some files.
  • Switched machines being used in CI and pointed status badges in README to the new machines.
  • Fixed NU1503 build warnings when building PowerToys. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Use the MSTest meta dependency for running the tests instead of the individual testing packages. Thanks @stan-sz!
  • Added missing CppWinRT references.