Microsoft PowerToys

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

Build status

Architecture	Master	Stable	Installer
x64

About

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows 10 experience for greater productivity. For more info on PowerToys overviews and guides, or any other tools and resources for Windows development environments, head over to docs.microsoft.com!

	Current utilities:
Color Picker	FancyZones	File Explorer Add-ons
Image Resizer	Keyboard Manager	PowerRename
PowerToys Run	Shortcut Guide	Video Conference Mute (Experimental)
Espresso (Coming soon in 0.39)

Installing and running Microsoft PowerToys

Requirements

• Windows 10 v1903 (build 18362) or newer.
  • ⚠️ PowerToys minimum version of Windows 10 is v1903 starting with the 0.37 release
• Have .NET Core 3.1.14 Desktop Runtime. The installer should handle this but we want to directly make people aware.

Via GitHub with EXE [Recommended]

Stable version

Install from the Microsoft PowerToys GitHub releases page. Click on Assets to show the files available in the release and then click on PowerToysSetup-0.37.2-x64.exe to download the PowerToys installer.

This is our preferred method.

Experimental version

To install the Video Conference mute, please use the v0.36 experimental version of PowerToys to try out this version. It includes all improvements from v0.35 in addition to the Video conference utility. Click on Assets to show the files available in the release and then download the .exe installer.

Via WinGet (Preview)

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

WinGet install powertoys

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.

Processor support

We currently support the matrix below.

x64	x86	ARM64
Supported	Issue #602	Issue #490

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.

0.39 - May 2021 Update

The PowerToys team is delaying our 0.39 release. We learned a lot but items took longer than expected. We have more we want done before the next release. This longer time will allow us to get in more amazing pull requests by you, the community, to add / improve functionality

0.37 - April 2021 Update

Our goals for v0.37 release cycle Video Conference Mute work so we can bring it into the stable branch, general bug fixes, moving Keyboard manager out, and removing the legacy settings app.

The 0.36 experimental release was released this month as well which includes Video Conference Mute which is based off the 0.35 code base.

Our prioritized roadmap of features and utilities will dictate what the core team is focusing on for the near future.

Highlights from v0.37

General

• PowerToys now requires Windows 10, version 1903 or higher
• FancyZones editor default launching key is Win+Shift+`
  • Windows Terminal's new Quake mode will use Win+`. We feel this is a far better use of the keystroke.
  • Current PowerToys users can update this in our settings in the FancyZone section.
• Removed our v1 HTML based settings system

New Spec - Feedback please!

• What is new in PowerToys (SCOOBE) - Pull Request

FancyZones

• Editor UX bug fixes. Thanks @niels9001
• Monitor resolution is added to the top to directly infer the boxes on top are your monitors
• Fix for editor crash when editing a custom layout

PowerRename

• Option added for capitalization.
• Improved loading responsiveness with large sums of files.

PowerToys Run

• Changed XAML to improve rendering. Thanks @niels9001
• Disabled plugins are no longer loaded
• VS Code plugin workspaces showing up now. Thanks @ricardosantos9521

Keyboard manager

• Now an independent exe. This now runs high priority in its own process. When your CPU is under load, this should allow the process to continue to be prioritized

Color Picker

• uses a centralized keyhook. This should improve activation
• Esc for closing will no longer bubble through. Thanks @DoctorNefario

Settings / Welcome to PowerToys

• Shortcuts will stand out more
• Few accessability bugs fixed. Thanks @niels9001

Shortcut Guide

• Excluded apps for Shortcut Guide. Thanks @davidegiacometti

Installer

• new arg for starting PT after silent install

Developer quality of life

• Ability to directly debug against Settings

Community contributions

We'd like to directly mention (in alphabetical order) for their continued community support this month and helping directly make PowerToys a better piece of software.

@Aaron-Junker, @addrum, @davidegiacometti , @DoctorNefario, @htcfreek, @Jay-o-Way, @niels9001, and @ricardosantos9521

What is being planned for v0.39 / 0.41

For v0.39 / 0.41, we are planning to work on:

• Stability and bug fixes
• Moving FancyZones & Shortcutguide out of the main exe
• Installer improvements

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.

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.