What’s Microsoft PowerToys and the way can it supercharge your PC?

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of instruments for Home windows customers to take advantage of out of their PCs. The utilities present capabilities that may enhance productiveness or enable for higher customisation. Microsoft known as the instruments PowerToys about ‘energy customers,’ a time period that signifies those that use superior options of a bit of {hardware} or software program – on this case, the Home windows working system (OS). Of their most up-to-date iteration, the instruments can be found inside a single Microsoft PowerToys utility for Home windows 10 and 11.

What’s Microsoft PowerToys?

Meant to enhance the common Home windows expertise, Microsoft PowerToys offers customers entry to options not out there or enabled within the vanilla working system. Microsoft PowerToys was first launched over 20 years in the past for Home windows 95. The suite of instruments additionally made its technique to Home windows XP. Nevertheless, PowerToys was by no means launched for Home windows Vista, Home windows 7, or Home windows 8. After that lengthy hiatus, the instruments returned in 2019 for Home windows 10, and Microsoft launched them as open supply on GitHub.

Examples of Microsoft PowerToys utilities embrace the Keyboard Supervisor (for options like key remapping or setting shortcuts), FancyZones (helps you to select and customise window layouts), Shade Picker (helps you to determine and choose colors in your display screen), and Mouse With out Borders (helps you to use a single mouse throughout a number of Home windows computer systems, concurrently).

As you’ll be able to see from simply the 4 Microsoft PowerToys utilities we have listed above, they are often very helpful, and there are a complete of twenty-two of them to make use of – on the time of writing. It is for that reason that Microsoft PowerToys will supercharge your Home windows expertise. We’ll embrace a full record of Microsoft PowerToys instruments and their options later within the article. Some utilities are extra helpful in Home windows 10 than Home windows 11, for instance: performance just like the FancyZones window supervisor is already constructed into the newer working system.

A screenshot of the FancyZones home windows structure supervisor.

What are you able to do with Microsoft PowerToys?

1. At all times On Prime – This utility helps you to pin a number of home windows on high with a keyboard shortcut. You may select the activation shortcut, whether or not the pinned window has a border, or whether or not a sound must be performed whereas pinning.
2. Awake – You may select whether or not your PC stays awake with out visiting the Energy settings. Choices embrace enabling the present energy plan, preserving the show on, and preserving awake indefinitely or for a particular time. You may change Awake settings through a system tray icon.
3. Shade Picker – This allows you to choose a color utilizing your cursor from any utility or any a part of the display screen after utilizing the activation shortcut. As soon as activated, you’ll be able to zoom in on the cursor space to see extra clearly. It’s then copied to your clipboard in a configurable color format (HEX, RGB, HSL, and so forth). Choices embrace opening a Shade Picker editor and fine-tuning the color.
4. Crop And Lock – This device helps you to crop an open utility right into a thumbnail or a specific space (known as Reparent), and every has its personal customisable shortcut. Whereas the previous technique will not allow you to management the applying, it has wider compatibility than the latter.
5. FancyZones – This extraordinarily customisable window structure supervisor helps you to create layouts in a structure editor and likewise units an activation shortcut to activate the function. Choices embrace controlling the zone behaviour, personalising zone look, selecting easy methods to change between home windows in a single zone, and extra.
6. File Locksmith – Meant to assist customers see which purposes use a selected file or folder. To make use of it, right-click on a file or folder, and choose “What’s utilizing this file?”. Choices allow you to select whether or not File Locksmith will seem in default, prolonged, or each context menus. Use Shift + right-click to entry an prolonged context menu.
7. File Explorer add-ons – An improve for the Preview Pane within the File Explorer. Enabling this function will help you preview a number of extra file varieties than regular, together with Markdown, PDF, SVG, STL, and over 150 supply code recordsdata proper within the File Explorer. There are additionally choices to activate Thumbnail Previews for varied file varieties.
8. Hosts File Editor – That is meant to be a fast and simple technique to entry and edit your Home windows Hosts file, which incorporates an inventory of domains and IP addresses of the hosts on IP networks. The device helps you to add new Hosts file entries, filter them, and backup the Hosts file.
9. Picture Resizer – This nifty device can be utilized as a bulk picture resizer proper on the Home windows File Explorer degree. Choose a number of recordsdata, right-click, and select the ‘Resize footage’ possibility. You’ll then be offered with user-configurable measurement presets or setting a customized measurement. Choices embrace picture encoding, resize behaviour, and file identify formatting of resized pictures.
10. Keyboard Supervisor – This reasonably helpful utility helps you to remap any key in your keyboard to both one other key or a shortcut. You may as well remap a shortcut (system-wide or in a selected utility) to a different key or shortcut.
11. Mouse utilities – There are 4 mouse utilities in Microsoft PowerToys on the time of writing, every with their very own customisable activation shortcuts: 1) Discover my mouse, 2) Mouse Highlighter, 3) Mouse Leap, and 4) Mouse Pointer Crosshairs.
12. Mouse With out Borders – Maybe probably the most magical of all of the Microsoft PowerToys instruments, this allows you to use your mouse on as much as 4 PCs without delay, so long as they every have PowerToys put in. After setting it up, aside from controlling a number of PCs with a single mouse, you can even copy clipboard contents and switch recordsdata between machines.
13. Paste As Plain Textual content – This function is so simple as it sounds. You may choose an activation shortcut that can allow you to stick the textual content contents of your clipboard, fully unformatted.
14. Peek – With this function enabled, customers can use a customisable shortcut in File Explorer to preview one or many recordsdata shortly, with out opening and shutting them in particular person applications. You may preview a number of file varieties, together with pictures, textual content, developer, and extra. The preview window could be made to shut after it loses focus.
15. PowerRename – This highly effective function helps you to bulk rename recordsdata utilizing ‘search & exchange’ or common expressions. You need to use choices corresponding to ‘Match all occurrences’, case sensitivity, apply to filename or extension solely, and extra. A complete article may very well be devoted to the variety of choices right here.
16. PowerToys Run – A extra succesful model of the highly effective Run dialog, you’ll be able to set an activation shortcut to convey up the PowerToys Run dialog. Aside from the common Run instructions, you’ll be able to seek for apps, recordsdata, folders, working processes, and even invoke Shell Plugins. Different instructions embrace performing easy calculations, changing models, opening webpages or beginning an online search, and extra.
17. Fast Accent – A great tool for many who kind in prolonged character units, Fast Accent will allow you to kind an accented character by holding down the important thing you wish to be accented after which urgent the activation key (house, left, or proper arrow). It’s going to then convey up a toolbar of accented characters that you could select from. Choices embrace limiting the character units to select from, toolbar place, and extra.
18. Registry Preview – Registry edits are solely a good suggestion if you recognize what you might be doing, as you’ll be able to trigger critical points with Home windows. As soon as enabled, the function might be out there within the right-click file context menu of Home windows Registry recordsdata as ‘Present extra choices,’ or through PowerToys Settings. In Registry Preview, you’ll be able to view and edit Home windows Registry recordsdata in a greater interface, together with a visible tree of all of the Registry keys within the file.
19. Display screen Ruler – This device helps you to measure the variety of pixels or dimensions of any space in your display screen. After urgent the customisable activation shortcut, you’ll be able to choose from one among 4 measurement instruments – Bounds, Spacing, Horizontal, or Vertical.
20. Shortcut Information – That is the best of the Microsoft PowerToys utilities. It is a record of widespread Home windows key shortcuts that, as soon as enabled, could be considered by both urgent the customisable activation shortcut or by holding the Home windows key for a pre-defined set of time.
21. Textual content Extractor – In case you can not copy the textual content from anyplace in your display screen, together with web sites, pictures, or movies, you should use the Textual content Extractor device. Press the customisable activation shortcut to convey up an overlay that you should use to seize a bit of your display screen. It’s going to use optical character recognition (OCR) to extract and place the textual content in your clipboard.
22. Video Convention Mute – Lastly, we finish with a device that is particularly helpful within the period of video conferencing. This PowerToys utility helps you to assign keyboard instructions for necessary shortcuts like muting the digicam, muting the microphone, and push to speak throughout a video convention.

Methods to get Microsoft PowerToys

The best technique to get PowerToys is through the Microsoft Retailer. Simply press the Home windows key to open the “Begin” menu, kind “Microsoft Retailer,” open the app, and seek for “Microsoft PowerToys.” Click on “Set up,” then wait until it’s completed downloading and putting in.

The Microsoft Retailer itemizing of PowerToys.

As soon as that is accomplished, you’ll be able to entry PowerToys by discovering and opening it through the “Begin” menu, or you’ll be able to open it through the Notification Space (aka system tray) icon. Congratulations, you are actually a Home windows energy person!

As soon as you’ve got opened PowerToys, you’ll most likely already be within the “PowerToys Settings” window. Right here, you’ll be able to select which PowerToys are enabled, in addition to choose the settings and set shortcuts for every device. You could as a substitute be proven the Welcome web page first. If that’s the case, you will discover a hyperlink to “Open Settings” below the “Common” tab.