Want a custom layout? Want to pick a color from anywhere without installing extensions? Need to resize photos? Want to become a power user? Fire up the Microsoft new free utility tool Power Toys will give you freedom.
Last few years, Microsoft works hard. They release so many open-source projects. One of them is Power Toys. Microsoft launched the initial version of PowerToys for Windows 95 back in the 1990s. It gives power users the to improve productivity and customize features. In 2019, Microsoft relaunched the newest flavor of PowerToys for Windows 10.
Power Toys are designed to enhance and improve windows 10 in precise and useful ways. Color Picker lets you pick the color from anywhere. Fancy Zones create layouts to help you better position windows for multitasking. The file Explorer Preview enables you to preview the more advanced type of files and many more.
It's not currently available through the Microsoft Store. You can find this open-source tool at GitHub. PowerToys full name is PowerToys (preview). Despite its preview status, the new PowerToys collection is well worth a look.
Install PowerToys
To get started, go to the
on GitHub and download the latest release. You'll find it under
Releases
near the top right of the home page,
Or visit the Releases page directly.
Look for the latest release and click the PowerToysSetup MSI file link to download the file.
Double-click the MSI file to install it, and the PowerToys icon should appear in the Windows System Tray. Click the icon, or if it doesn't appear, open the PowerToys (Preview) shortcut from the Start menu, then click the System Tray icon. The PowerToys icon on your taskbar, right-click it, and select Settings.
PowerToys UI
After opening the PowerToys, you'll see a screen like this:
The PowerToys Settings screen appears, pointing you to the General screen. Here, you can decide to run PowerToys as an administrator; it's better to use PowerToys as an administrator, required for specific tools.
Color Picker
A system-wide color picker. People who work with graphics, photography often have to identify a specific color and use it. That's why tools like photo editor have a color picker tool that lets you point your mouse cursor at the part of an image to identify what color it is.
ColorPicker is a quick and straightforward system-wide color picker with
Win+Shift+C. Color Picker allows you to pick colors from any currently running application and automatically copies the HEX or RGB values to your clipboard.
Win+Shift+C
Click once, and the hex color code will be copied to your clipboard so you can paste it. If you prefer RGB, you can open the Color Picker screen in the PowerToys Settings window and choose to copy the RGB color code instead when you click.
Fancy Zone
FancyZones is a window manager that makes it easy to create complex window layouts and quickly position windows into those layouts.
Windows 10 lets you multitask by positioning windows into different areas on the screen, but getting the right window into a specific spot can be challenging. With FancyZones, you can set up a particular screen layout ahead of time, then pop windows into each predefined zone of that layout.
To do this, select FancyZones in the PowerToys Settings window and click Launch zones editor. At the FancyZones editor, create a layout by choosing one of the default templates—such as columns, rows, or grid—and modifying it. Then add or remove zones as you see fit. Alternatively, click the heading for Custom to build a layout from scratch. When done, click Apply.
Windows+`
By default, you can press Windows+` (that's a tilde, the key above the Tab key) to open the Zone Editor. Then, while dragging and dropping a window, you can press and hold the Shift key (or another mouse button, like your right mouse button) to see the zones. Drop a window in a zone, and it'll snap to that layout on your screen.
File Explorer
The Windows 10 File Explorer can already preview a range of different files, including PDFs, images, audio files, video files, and Microsoft Office documents.
With the PowerToys File Explorer, add-ons will enable SVG icon rendering and Preview Pane additions for File Explorer.
Preview Pane is an existing feature in the File Explorer. To enable it, you click the View tab in the ribbon and then click Preview Pane. PowerToys will now enable two types of files to be previewed: Markdown (.md) & SVG (.svg)
Image Resizer
Sometimes a photo or other graphic is too large to share via email. You can change the size through a dedicated image editor, but the PowerToys Image Resizer tool is convenient.
PowerToys offers a quick image resizer that integrates with File Explorer.
With it enabled, select one or more image files in File Explorer, right-click them, and select Resize Pictures.
Keyboard Manager
Keyboard Manager allows you to customize the keyboard to be more productive by remapping keys and creating your keyboard shortcuts.
Power Rename
Windows don't make it easy to rename files in bulk, especially if you want to give each file a unique identifier. With PowerRename, you can rename multiple files based on a specific pattern. Open File Explorer and select the files you want to rename.
Right-click one of the files and choose PowerRename from the pop-up menu.
PowerToys Run
Finding a specific application or file to open can be challenging, especially if the item doesn't appear in your Start menu or another convenient spot.
PowerToys Run is a new toy in PowerToys that can help you search and launch your app instantly.
Alt+Space
Press Alt+Space. Now start typing the name of the item you want, and results will begin to populate in the list. Click the result for the app or file you wish to open.
Shortcut Guide
Windows 10 offers a variety of keyboard shortcuts that you can use in combination with the Win key. We can't remember all of them. PowerToys shortcut guide solves this simple problem.
Windows
Just press down on the Windows Key until the shortcut guide appears and display a list of each available shortcut.
Conclusion
PowerToys helps me to become more productive. I've been using this tool for a while. It has more than enough options, which operate in daily day tasks, especially tools like Power Run and Fancy Zone.
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