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Microsoft PowerToys

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128 pointsakudlacek75 comments

PowerToys is one of the best things about Windows: useful, free, and regularly updated. It was great to see it come back in 2019.

If only Microsoft could make it part of Windows by default instead of those lucky users who discover what PowerToys needing to submit their request to corporate IT and enduring either incredulity or dumb jokes about the naming.

Gatekeeping as "power user features" is silly, it's 2025 and many of these features have been built-in on other operating systems for a decade or more.

True, but one of the reasons that PowerToys can innovate and iterate so freely is not being tied to mainline Windows and all the enterprise and backward compatibility baggage that comes with.

This. I would rather have them be a small independent team that can test and break things instead of having to comply to a big bureaucracy.

I think they brought them back to compete with the newer macOS features. It's working and I hope they keep iterating until it is much better.

Don't forget SysInternals for the more technical tasks/tools.

SysInternals is great (though improvements to taskmgr and resmon have closed some of the gap).

SysInternals is also wild in encouraging running an .exe directly from the web via Sysinternals Live.

One issue I had in the past was with the Advanced Clipboard/Paste so I've disabled it on my new laptop until I can figure out what the issue was.

That said, PowerToys was the first thing I installed on the new laptop.

One missing feature is Windows Explorer Shell integration for File Hash checks, e.g. for downloads. Hopefully it won't be too much longer until this lands: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/57#issuecommen...

I found OpenHashTab to be a good tool for this in the meantime: https://github.com/namazso/OpenHashTab

7zip adds a context menu option for this.

One annoying thing (among others) I realized after upgrading to Windows 11 recently is the ability to position the taskbar on the right or left is gone. Microsoft and its all knowing Windows 11 team decided that having the taskbar anywhere except at the bottom doesn’t work well and removed this positioning feature that has existed for decades.

I doubt that PowerToys would add a feature for this, but it’d be cool if it happened.

Windhawk has a plug-in to fix this I'm pretty sure.

For that, use ExplorerPatcher: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

Agreed. Possibly controversial opinion but in my mind, on widescreen displays, it makes good sense to have the taskbar to the left or right.

They didn't remove it. The new taskbar and start menu were written for Windows 10x (a sandboxed version of windows meant for dual screen devices) when that was canceled Microsoft bolted them on top of Windows 10 added arbitrary hardware restrictions and released as Windows 11

So... they rewrote the taskbar without the feature in it, but didn't technically, exactly "remove" it, per se? That's quite a small distinction.

I honestly don't get what the technical reason is. Surely no one is hardcoding pixel offsets somewhere. The rendering code likely doesn't care where it starts to render the taskbar and where the main display renders. It can obviously also be rendered without a taskbar below. The most effort is probably incorporating it into settings, but this is hopefully also not hardcoded. This all sounds like something a single employee could implement in one afternoon.

FancyZones is a must-have if you use an ultrawide monitor! I set mine up with two zones, where one takes up about 1/3 of the screen and the other takes up about 2/3.

Are you me? Exact same! The problem with dual monitors is either you're sat in front of the gap, or you need to pivot. This way you get a 'normal' monitor and a portrait section to the side, much better.

The obvious solution is going triple monitor:

One 32" 3840x2160 landscape and two 25" 2560x1440 portrait monitors is perfect for me.

I did that too for a while, have since switched to Alienware 38" ultrawide, lgs vertical monitor on right ( LG 28MQ780-B) + MacBook pro on the left.

Ultrawide is quiet useful to have - especially with coding. E.g. It's nice being able to look at 2 files and have the project tree + tool window open simultaneously.

I have a pretty odd grid setup myself for a 55" TV monitor. Best part is holding shift and being able to snap a window to multiple zones. Let's me have a grid with tons of smaller zones that are useful for various apps when I need tiny windows and large ones when I don't.

I use 12 columns so I can still do this 1/3 - 2/3 split, but other proportions as well. I tend to have a chat app on the left quarter, browser in the middle half, and a music app on the right quarter. Lots more freedom than only two zones!

I set up three zones and a huge highlight distance between them. I can drag a window between zones and it resizes to those two zones combined. This way I can have three 1:1:1 windows or two 2:1 or 1:2 windows with the same single layout!

I've found splitting up my ultrawide into 6x2 cells, then you can use Ctrl+Shift to select every cell your mouse enters additively. I've wanted something like this for linux for a long time but haven't found anything.

Amazing they are still alive and kicking. Started using them with Windows 95 (different specific ones, same general concept)

These and Sysinternals (bought by Microsoft around 2006) were must have when I was still using Windows.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

I think it got revived a few years ago, so not always alive and kicking.

Yes, it was basically gone for a decade or more. There’s no shared code. Though I’m sure they may have looked at the old code for inspiration for some of the Win32 stuff.

Aaahh, PowerToys - making Windows somewhat usable since 1996.

On a related note, before I'm forced to write my own, does anyone know of a Windows tool that allows keyboard based window navigation? Not the alt-tab faff, I mean like in terminal emulators and terminal multiplexers, I want to use say win-ctrl-arrows to move focus from the current window to the adjacent or overlapping visible window to the left, right etc.

Someone must have done this already...

I wrote https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse a while back with the “grid mode” that moves the mouse cursor by bisecting the screen coordinate incrementally.

Not exactly what I was after but still looks very useful, I'll give it a try, thanks!

The new PowerToys command palette is looking promising as well, still very worthy of the beta label but I like where it’s going

Command Palette is the Mac/Linux style app picker that's nice and bloated and does what hitting the Windows key and Start Menu search should've done in 98SE. I've got it bound to Win+Shift+Space but it's laggy and dumb enough (doesn't learn what I'm always searching for and running??) to where I don't bother. My money's still on it eventually replacing the Windows key binding.

It’s the best tool in the suite and I’d say Microsoft take it out and make it a single application sooner or later.

I tried it, but I prefer https://keypirinha.com

I use Raycast on MacOS, a Windows version is coming: https://www.raycast.com/windows

I can't believe I've never seen this before - I was scrolling through the list of tools and almost every one of them is something I've either wished I had or went out of my way to download some software. Thanks!

It is a little annoying that I had to install this in order to remap the capslock key on my laptop to a control key. That's all I use from powertoys, but I guess I'm glad it is at least feasible.

I use SharpKeys for this.

Wow. It's been a while since I used it. It's come a long way, this is excellent. At the time I chose fluent search with everything.exe file indexing and quicklook previews (all integrated), and it was really good. If powertoys can replace all that with one tool I'll be really happy. However, everything.exe will always be the only search indexer I ever use, the thing is just orders of magnitude better than anything else. So if command palette can't interface with that, it's a deal breaker.

PowerToys has and Everything plugin

I’ve been a user of Everything along with Keypirinha for a long time. The latter is very convenient for calculations, as a launcher, for currency conversions, and more. I even disabled Windows Search because it’s slow and not as good as Everything.

Found this to keep my computer awake temporarily but there's a lot more useful stuff here, and it's available on the Microsoft store.

Favorites so far: PowerToys Awake - keep a computer awake without having to manage its power & sleep settings File Locksmith - check which files are in use and by which processes PowerRename - bulk file renaming Text Extractor - copy text anywhere on screen

I love Mouse Without Borders, just setup the code between machines and your mouse goes there (and keyboard input) and even simple file sharing.

About PowerToys’ Text Extractor, there’s equivalent functionality in Windows now, from [1]:

It's recommended to use the Snipping Tool instead of the Text Extractor for capturing screenshots.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/text-ext...

Since switching to Linux in 2023, Text Extractor is actually the thing I miss most. Text Extractor was a joy to use. While I have found equivalents for most of the PowerToys on Linux, the PowerToys did a great job and it was one of my favorite pieces of software.

For any Linux users reading this, is there a Text Extractor equivalent that I'm missing? I've tried Normcap, Frog, textsnatch...

On the Mac side, can confirm how useful this is. As soon as transparent text selection in images was added to iOS and macOS, it went from that being a feature I'd never even though about, to becoming a table-stakes feature for considering a GUI platform basically "complete". It's very weird and annoying when I'm on something that doesn't have it, now. Crazy for a piece of functionality I'd never even thought to try to find a solution for, until it was simply handed to me and worked automatically.

> PowerToys Awake - keep a computer awake without having to manage its power & sleep settings

I prefer another application called Caffeine [1], which also prevents Windows from automatically locking and keeps it such that the status on some applications doesn’t automatically change to “Away” after sometime. For some reason I couldn’t get PowerToys Awake to do this. Some Windows policies are controlled by the company I work at. But I use this only when I’m in a secure location where I’m the only person around or I remember (from muscle memory) to hit Windows L to lock the system when I step away.

[1]: https://zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/

Powertoys has had some weird bugs over the years:

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/410

I can't find it now, but I think it also used to crash outlook if you put mailto: links in emails.

I wish I could find the pull request associated with that issue.

I don't use windows much these days, but these are impressive and all look really useful

Is there a single utility more powerful than some standalone alternative? Seems like none of them are very powerful despite the name (though maybe that's what the "toys" is for?)

Tried it and realized it was gimped compared to the Linux tools it was trying to emulate. Monopolies will always be playing catchup with basic functionalities people have done for free because they make sense.

Better if it allowed single-tool installs instead of the whole suite.

Installed this two days ago for the color picker.

OSRS players - You can use this to remap your 2 and 6 keys, makes mahogany tables less painful as you reach the third hour.

Why not just include in the OS?

They're really good at keeping out functional bloat, not so much with ad and telemetry bloat.

Marketing driven development, its the best programming approach.

I've wondered that same thing for the last 30 years.

Including it in the OS is a much bigger support commitment.

Yep. I, for one, am certainly glad that PowerToys are separate and they can be updated/iterated upon more often.

I think PowerToys are sort of a testing/QA playground. Features from PowerToys are sometimes adopted into Windows.

They would have to support it for 20 years or more.

"power" as in Power-user... A lot of power user tools aren't typically installed in consumer oriented OSes, see MacOS and Windows.

Beyond this, PowerToys can take third party contributions and evolve far faster/easier than Windows official release software.

I wish they removed a lot from Windows... for a consumer user. Installing Prof/Enterprise editions and there is still bloatware installed, it is so unappealing!

Every thread about windows has everyone moaning about bloat. Some tools from the Powertoys Suite are usable, but the whole thing is incredibly clunky and slow even compared to the React native infested Windows 11

Still no X mouse. The new Powertoys are a parody of the old ones.

This should be preinstalled on Windows

If only there were a power toy to make it so that I can drag a file onto an app on the Win11 task bar to open it with that app, then I could actually switch to Win11. Until then, Power Toys makes every day with Win10 a little bit better.

That was added to base Windows 11 3 years ago

Huh?!? How? It was removed and looks like not working right now

It was added in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_11,_version_22H2

Before that update the feature was not implemented, because Windows 11 uses the taskbar written for Windows 10x

The ‘proxy’ part on MacOS (which I think was a thing way back to System 9, 8 and maybe even 7) is something I have always missed in the Windows world. Also being able toneart a path in to an open/save dialog to get the path there is a thing I miss!

Are you sure you can't do that? I remember putting an URL there and being surprised that it actually downloads and opens it.

Half of this is just macOS. I'm here for it.

I've used "DeskPins" for a while now to replicate "Always On Top". Exciting to see its now 'native' to Windows. It's not a significant program, but I'm gonna try to swap over

(https://github.com/thewhitegrizzli/DeskPins)

There have been various apps to do this since forever, but still, none are native to Windows.

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