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Microsoft PowerToys

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How to use PowerToys | Downloads & Release notes | Contributing to PowerToys | What's Happening | Roadmap

Build status

Architecture Solution (Main) Solution (Stable) Installer (Main)
x64 Build Status for Main Build Status for Stable Build Status Installer pipeline
ARM64 Build Status for Main Build Status for Main Build Status Installer pipeline

About

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows experience for greater productivity. For more info on PowerToys overviews and how to use the utilities, or any other tools and resources for Windows development environments, head over to learn.microsoft.com!

Current utilities:
Always on Top PowerToys Awake Color Picker
FancyZones File Explorer Add-ons File Locksmith
Hosts File Editor Image Resizer Keyboard Manager
Mouse utilities PowerRename PowerToys Run
Quick Accent Screen Ruler Shortcut Guide
Text Extractor Video Conference Mute

Installing and running Microsoft PowerToys

Requirements

Via GitHub with EXE [Recommended]

Go to Microsoft PowerToys GitHub releases page, click on Assets at the bottom to show the files available in the release. Please use the appropriate the PowerToys installer that matches your machine's architecture. For most, it is x64.

This is our preferred method.

Via Microsoft Store

Install from the Microsoft Store's PowerToys page. You must be using the new Microsoft Store which will be available for both Windows 11 and Windows 10.

Via WinGet (Preview)

Download PowerToys from WinGet. To install PowerToys, run the following command from the command line / PowerShell:

winget install Microsoft.PowerToys -s winget

Other install methods

There are community driven install methods such as Chocolatey and Scoop. If these are your preferred install solutions, this will have the install instructions.

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions of all types. Help spec'ing, design, documentation, finding bugs are ways everyone can help on top of coding features / bug fixes. 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 will 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 have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution.

For guidance on developing for PowerToys, please read the developer docs for a detailed breakdown. This includes how to setup your computer to compile.

What's Happening

PowerToys Roadmap

Our prioritized roadmap of features and utilities that the core team is focusing on.

0.65 - November 2022 Update

In this release, we focused on stability and improvements.

Highlights

  • The codebase was upgraded to work with .NET 7. Thanks @snickler!
  • Quick Accent can now show a description of the selected character. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
  • ColorPicker now supports adding custom formats.

Known issues

General

  • Downgraded the ModernWPF dependency to 0.9.4 to avoid issues on certain virtualization technologies. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  • Upgraded and fixed the code to work with .NET 7. Thanks @snickler!

Always on Top

  • Added telemetry for the pinning/unpinning events.

Awake

  • Added telemetry.
  • Removed exiting Awake from the tray icon when starting from the runner. Utilities started from the runner should be disabled in the Settings to avoid discrepancies.

Color Picker

  • Fixed an infinite loop due to a looping UI refresh. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  • Added a feature to allow users to create their own color formats.

FancyZones

  • Fixed an issue that caused turning off spaces between zones to not apply correctly. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  • Prevent the shift key press from trickling down to the focused window. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Fixed a bug causing FancyZones to try resizing hidden windows.
  • Fixed the focus layout preview being empty on first run in the editor.
  • Fixed UI margin in the "Create new layout" dialog.
  • Fixed window positioning issues when switching between virtual desktops.
  • Fixed snapping by hotkey in single zone layouts.

File explorer add-ons

  • Added .log file support to the Monaco preview handler. Thanks @Eagle3386!

File Locksmith

  • Query system and other users processes when elevated. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  • Icon and UI fixes. Thanks @niels9001! (This was a hotfix for 0.64)

Group Policy Objects

  • Removed a obsolete dependency from the admx file to fix importing on Intune. Thanks @htcfreek! (This was a hotfix for 0.64)

Hosts File Editor

  • Added a scrollbar to the additional lines dialog. Thanks @davidegiacometti! (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  • Updated the plus icon. Thanks @niels9001! (This was a hotfix for 0.64)
  • Prevent the new entry content dialog from overlapping the title bar.
  • Updated the name for the additional lines feature. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Added a workaround for an issue causing the context menu not opening on right-click. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

Image Resizer

  • Fixed a silent crash when trying to show the tier 1 context menu on Windows 11.

PowerToys Run

  • Added pinyin support to the search. Thanks @frg2089!
  • Fixed an error in the TimeZone plugin preventing searching for standard time zones. Thanks @Tantalus13A98B5F!
  • Added the English abbreviations as fallbacks in the UnitConverter plugin. Thanks @Tantalus13A98B5F!

Quick Accent

  • Added mappings for the mu, omicron, upsilon and thorn characters.
  • Added a setting to exclude apps from activating Quick Accent.
  • Fixed an issue causing the selector to trigger when leaving the lock screen. Thanks @damienleroy!
  • Added the Croatian, Netherlands, Swedish and Welsh character sets. Thanks @damienleroy!
  • Added support for more unicode characters. Thanks @char-46!
  • Shift-space can now navigate backwards in the selector. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Added the Catalan accented characters. Thanks @ivocarbajo and @codingneko!
  • Added the Kurdish accented characters.
  • Added the Serbian accented characters. Thanks @damienleroy!
  • Added the Irish and Scottish accented characters.
  • Added the description for the currently selected character in the selector.
  • Fixed a bug causing the selector window to appear blank.

Runner

  • Fixed a crash on a racing condition accessing the IPC communication with Settings.

Settings

  • Fixed settings name in the QuickAccent page. Thanks @htcfreek!
  • Added a message indicating there's no network available when looking for updates.
  • Fixed an error causing the backup/restore feature to not find the backup file. Thanks @jefflord!
  • Fixed localization for the "All apps" expression in the keyboard manager page.
  • UI refactoring, clean-up and bringing in modern controls. Thanks @niels9001!
  • Improved settings/OOBE screens text. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
  • The backup/restore feature also backs up FancyZones layouts.

Shortcut Guide

  • Added a setting to make the shortcuts and taskbar icons have different configurable response times. Thanks @OkamiWong!

Video Conference Mute

  • Changed the warning about deprecating Video Conference Mute to saying it's going to go into legacy mode, thanks to community feedback. (This was a hotfix for 0.64)

Documentation

  • Added the core team to COMMUNITY.md

Development

  • Fixed some errors in the GitHub issue templates. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
  • Updated the Windows implementation library. Thanks @AtariDreams!
  • Added Hosts File Editor to the issue templates. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Turned on C++ code analysis and incrementally fixing warnings.
  • Cleaned up unused dependencies. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Fixed building on the latest MSVC.
  • Fixed multi-processor build on the latest MSBuild.
  • Added a message to suggest the feedback hub to the fabric bot triggers.
  • Optimized every png file with the zopfli algorithm. Thanks @pea-sys!
  • Updated the .vsconfig file for a quicker development setup. Thanks @ChaseKnowlden!
  • Fixed a language typo in the code. Thanks @eltociear!
  • Fixed wrong x86 target in the solution file.
  • Added a script to fail building when the nuget packages aren't consolidated. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
  • Upgraded the Vanara.Invoke dependencies.
  • Upgraded and brought back the spell-checker. Thanks @jsoref!
  • Added a new dependencies feed and fixed release CI. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!

What is being planned for version 0.66

For v0.66, we'll work on below:

  • Ship .NET self contained and shared between utilities
  • Stability / bug fixes

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. Month over month, you directly help make PowerToys a better piece of software.

Code of Conduct

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct.

Privacy Statement

The application logs basic telemetry. Our Telemetry Data page (Coming Soon) has the trends from the telemetry. Please read the Microsoft privacy statement for more information.