With over 1 billion users, Windows 10 is the leading desktop operating system in the world. While the OS offers a decent set of features, power users may need additional tools to make the most out of their machines. One such tool Microsoft made with power users in mind is PowerToys. In this article, we are going to show you how you can use all the power features that come with PowerToys on Windows 10.

Today, we will be going through the installation process of PowerToys and all the features it offers. Read on till the end to learn how to use the tool to increase productivity in your workflow.

  • Download and Install PowerToys
  • Color Picker
  • FancyZones
  • File Explorer
  • Image Resizer
  • Keyboard Manager
  • PowerRename
  • PowerToys Run
  • Shortcut Guide

Download and Install PowerToys

Since PowerToys doesn’t come bundled with Windows 10, you’ll have to manually download and install it. To do that, visit PowerToys’ GitHub page. From the Assets section, click on the latest .exe file to download it. After the download completes, run the installation file to install the application on your computer.

Color Picker offers a convenient system-wide color picker on Windows 10. You can use it to pick colors on the fly from anywhere on your Windows 10 PC. The feature, activated with the keyboard shortcut ‘Win + Shift + C’, comes with an editor to tweak the picked color code and copy the color in various formats including HEX, RGB, HSL, HSV, CMYK, HSB, HSI, HWB, and NCol.

FancyZones

FancyZones is essentially a supercharged window manager for all your multitasking needs. With FancyZones’ layout editor, you can tweak the window locations to make efficient usage of space on your PC. You can activate the layout editor with the keyboard shortcut ‘Win + `’ and use one of the templates – focus, columns, rows, grid, and priority grid or create a custom layout to suit your needs.

File Explorer

File Explorer add-on utility increases the flexibility of the preview pane of Windows 10’s file manager. This add-on adds support for markdown (.md) and Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) files in the preview pane. As a result, you can see the contents without opening the file. You also get support for .svg thumbnails, which should come in handy to quickly identify files.

Image Resizer is one of my favorite PowerToys tools. As the name suggests, you can use it to resize images. What makes Image Resizer convenient is that you can access it with a simple right-click from the file explorer. Once enabled, you’ll see a new ‘Resize pictures’ option in the right click menu.

The tool supports the following file format parameters that you can use for naming the resized file:

Keyboard Manager

Keyboard Manager is a utility for remapping keys and shortcuts. This could be a lifesaver at times when one of the keys in your laptop’s keyboard stops functioning. With this tool, you can easily remap an essential dead key with a working key that is not as important.

If you’re someone whose workflow involves renaming a significant number of files, PowerRename might be just what you need. This tool offers bulk renaming with some useful set of features. With PowerRename, you can modify file names, use search and replace on a specific part of a file name, and use regular expressions.

You can access PowerRename by right-clicking on a file or a selection of files, followed by choosing ‘PowerRename’ from the list of available options.

PowerToys Run is the much-hyped Spotlight-like app launcher tool introduced at Build 2020 developer conference. You can access it with the keyboard shortcut ‘Alt+Space’ and use it to search apps, files, folders, running processes, and even perform simple math calculations. It is worth noting that you need Windows 10 1903 (build 18362) or later to use PowerToys Run.

  • = – Calculator based operations
  • ? – File searches
  • . – Search installed apps
  • // – access URLs
  • < – Running processes

  • – Shell commands

Shortcut Guide

Lastly, we have Shortcut Guide, a handy addition that will help new Windows 10 users. Shortcut Guide brings an overlay with common Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts when you press and hold the Windows key. You can alternatively access the shortcut guide with the combination ‘Windows + ?’.