PowerToys' Advanced Paste is a handy tool for anyone who wants to take copying and pasting to the next level on Windows. However, Microsoft wants to take it even further by incorporating two new paste actions that allow the transcoding of media files to help users convert them from one format to another.

PowerToys Advanced Paste will not be limited to text-based formats

PowerToys' Advanced Paste is an AI tool that lets you paste content in different formats, including text, markdown, JSON, and HTML. But they are all text-based formats, and this will change soon. Microsoft is currently working on two major paste actions for easy audio and video conversions, giving a new purpose to the Advanced Paste capability.

In the Advanced Paste setting, you'll soon see a new Transcode audio / video toggle under Additional actions. Turning it on will allow you to enable "Transcode to .mp3" and "Transcode to .mp4(H.264/AAC)." Once turned on, you'll see them in the PowerToys Paste menu, which you can launch by pressing the Win key + Shift + V on your keyboard.

If you have a video file and want to extract the audio from it, you can select the transcode to .mp3 option. It can also help you convert an audio file to mp3 format. Similarly, the other option deals with video formats. You can select the transcode to .mp4 option if you want to convert a video file into .mp4. Microsoft also promises that these two upcoming paste actions will keep the original quality intact "to the extent possible" in the output.

PowerToys' Advance Paste will get some solid improvements and more paste actions

In addition to the media transcoding features, PowerToys will also get a new cancel button, which will cancel a paste action. As described by Microsoft, this will be useful for media transcoding or any long-running actions like Paste with AI. On top of that, you'll see a progress ring to track the status of the transcoding process. Interestingly, Microsoft says that it'll be useful for other paste actions in the future, hinting that it has plans to introduce more paste actions beyond transcoding to .mp3 and .mp4.

When are the new paste actions coming?

As exciting as the new paste actions sound, Microsoft hasn't shared specific details on when they will be available for PoweToys users. The two new paste actions for transcoding media files are currently in production, so it shouldn't take much time to become available. In fact, the company is planning to introduce them in PowerToys version 0.89, which will be the next big update to the current version 0.88.