Microsoft PowerToys is a collection of utilities designed to help power users customize and optimize their Windows experience for greater productivity. Inspired by the classic Windows 95 PowerToys project, this modern reboot offers tools tailored to streamline workflows and enhance efficiency in Windows.
Key Features:
Advanced Paste: Supports multiple AI model providers (e.g., Azure OpenAI, Google Gemini) for versatile text generation and manipulation.
FancyZones: Customizable window layouts to maximize screen real estate and improve multitasking.
PowerRename: Efficient batch file renaming with support for metadata extraction from images.
Command Palette: A searchable command launcher that integrates clipboard history, math calculations, and system commands for quick access.
Awake: A countdown timer designed to stay accurate over long periods, helping users maintain focus.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for power users seeking to tailor their Windows environment for individual workflows, PowerToys provides tools to increase productivity, customize the OS, and simplify repetitive tasks. Its utilities cater to those who value efficiency, customization, and advanced functionality in their computing experience.
Available via winget, PowerToys can be installed with a command-line interface, ensuring seamless integration into existing workflows.
For detailed installation instructions and system requirements, visit the installation docs.
But to get started quickly, choose one of the installation methods below:
Download .exe from GitHub
Go to the PowerToys GitHub releases, click Assets to reveal the downloads, and choose the installer that matches your architecture and install scope. For most devices, that's the x64 per-user installer.
Download PowerToys from WinGet. Updating PowerToys via winget will respect the current PowerToys installation scope. To install PowerToys, run the following command from the command line / PowerShell:
There are community driven install methods such as Chocolatey and Scoop. If these are your preferred install solutions, you can find the install instructions there.
Command Palette: Major expansion with PowerToys extension (Windows 11 only), Remote Desktop built-in extension, theme customization, drag-and-drop support, fallback ranking controls, sections/separators for pages, pinyin Chinese matching, and many UX refinements.
Settings: Quick Access flyout is now a standalone process for significantly faster startup, theme-adaptive tray icon, AOT serialization, and multiple UI/accessibility fixes
CursorWrap (New!): New mouse utility that lets your cursor wrap around screen edges, making multi-monitor navigation faster and more seamless.
Advanced Paste: Image input for AI, color detection in clipboard history, Foundry Local improvements, Azure AI icons, and multiple bug fixes
CLI Support Expanded: FancyZones, Image Resizer, and File Locksmith can now be controlled from the command line for layout management, batch image resizing, and file lock inspection.
LightSwitch: Added support for automatically following Windows Night Light mode.
Release Experience & Quality: Refreshed "What’s new" dialog, plus many performance improvements, stability fixes, and refinements across PowerToys.
Advanced Paste
Added hex color previews in clipboard history. Thanks @crramirez!
Added automatic placeholder endpoints when required fields are left empty.
Fixed a grammar issue in the AI settings description. Thanks @erik-anderson!
Fixed loading order so custom action hotkeys are read correctly.
Updated Advanced Paste descriptions to reflect support for online and local models.
Fixed clipboard history item selection so it doesn’t duplicate entries.
Prevented placeholder endpoints from being saved for providers that don’t need them.
Added image input support for AI transforms and improved clipboard change tracking.
Awake
Fixed Awake CLI so help, errors, and logs appear correctly in the console. Thanks @daverayment!
Command Palette
Fixed background image loading in BlurImageControl. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Fixed SDK packaging paths and added a CI SDK build stage.
Aligned naming and spell-checking with .NET conventions. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Added drag-and-drop support for Command Palette items. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Added a PowerToys Command Palette extension to discover and launch PowerToys utilities.
Fixed grid view bindings and layout issues. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Fixed a line-break issue in RDC extension toast messages. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Made the Settings button text localizable. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Hid the RDC fallback on the home page and fixed MSTSC working directory handling. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Optimized result list merging for better performance. Thanks @daverayment!
Added Small/Medium/Large detail sizes in the extensions API. Thanks @DevLGuilherme!
Hid fallback commands on the home page when no query is entered. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Added back navigation support in the Settings window. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Added a Command Palette solution filter. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Updated Extension SDK documentation links to Microsoft Learn. Thanks @RubenFricke!
Added a custom search engine URL setting for Web Search. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Added pinyin matching for Chinese input. Thanks @frg2089!
Bumped Command Palette version to 0.8.
Removed subtitles from built-in top-level commands. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Refined separator styling in the details pane. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Added a built-in Remote Desktop extension.
Added a Peek command to the Indexer extension.
Improved default browser detection using the Windows Shell API. Thanks @jiripolasek!
Added a global SettingsUtils singleton to reduce repeated initialization.
Development
Fixed broken devdocs links to the coding style guide. Thanks @RubenFricke!
Migrated main and installer solutions to .slnx for improved build tooling.
Restored local installer builds after the WiX v5 upgrade with signing and versioning fixes.
Added incremental review tooling and structured AI prompts for PR/issue reviews.
Documented bot commands and cleaned up devdocs structure. Thanks @noraa-junker!
Updated WinAppSDK pipeline defaults to 1.8 and fixed restore handling.
Updated the COMMUNITY list to reflect current roles.
Maintained community member ordering and added a new entry.
Re-enabled centralized PackageReference for native projects with VS auto-restore.
Disabled MSBuild caching by default in CI to avoid build instability.
Updated the latest WinAppSDK daily pipeline for split-dependency restores.
Suppressed experimental build warnings and aligned WrapPanel stretch handling.
Reordered the spell-check expect list for consistent automation.
Migrated native projects to centralized PackageReference management.
Cleaned spell-check dictionary entries and capitalization.
Synced commit/PR prompts and wired VS Code to repo prompt files.
Added VS Code build tasks and improved build script path handling.
Updated Windows App SDK package versions in central package management.
Migrated cmdpal extension native project to PackageReference and fixed outputs.
Reverted PackageReference changes back to packages.config where needed.
Bypassed a release version check for a failing DLL to keep pipelines green.
Consolidated Copilot instructions and fixed prompt frontmatter.
Added signing entries for new Quick Access binaries and CLI version metadata.
Fixed install scope detection to avoid mixed per-user/per-machine installs.
Added a Module Loader tool to quickly test PowerToys modules without full builds. Thanks @mikehall-ms!
Added update telemetry to understand auto-update checks and downloads.
Updated the telemetry package for new compliance requirements. Thanks @carlos-zamora!
Documented missing telemetry events in DATA_AND_PRIVACY.
Fixed UI test pipeline restores for .slnx solutions.
Added UI automation coverage for Advanced Paste clipboard history flows.
Stabilized FancyZones UI tests with more reliable selectors and screen recordings.
🛣️ Roadmap
We are planning some nice new features and improvements for the next releases – PowerDisplay, Command Palette improvements and a brand-new Shortcut Guide experience! Stay tuned for v0.97!
❤️ PowerToys Community
The PowerToys team is extremely grateful to have the support of an amazing active community. The work you do is incredibly important. PowerToys wouldn't be nearly what it is today without your help filing bugs, updating documentation, guiding the design, or writing features. We want to say thank you and take time to recognize your work. Your contributions and feedback improve PowerToys month after month!
Contributing
This project welcomes contributions of all types. Besides coding features / bug fixes, other ways to assist include spec writing, design, documentation, and finding bugs. We are excited to work with the power user community to build a set of tools for helping you get the most out of Windows. We ask that before you start work on a feature that you would like to contribute, please read our Contributor's Guide. We would be happy to work with you to figure out the best approach, provide guidance and mentorship throughout feature development, and help avoid any wasted or duplicate effort. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you grant us the rights to use your contribution and that you have permission to do so. For guidance on developing for PowerToys, please read the developer docs for a detailed breakdown. This includes how to setup your computer to compile.
Advanced Paste
Always on Top
Awake
Color Picker
Command Not Found
Command Palette
Crop And Lock
Environment Variables
FancyZones
File Explorer Add-ons
File Locksmith
Hosts File Editor
Image Resizer
Keyboard Manager
Light Switch
Mouse Utilities
Mouse Without Borders
New+
Peek
PowerRename
PowerToys Run
Quick Accent
Registry Preview
Screen Ruler
Shortcut Guide
Text Extractor
Workspaces
ZoomIt