When you perform tasks on your PC, you use your mouse and keyboard to manage them. Wouldn’t you like to remove the repetition of checking boxes, clicking buttons or files, launching apps, and other tedium out of your workflow? Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow) on Windows is a unique app that simulates mouse and keyboard actions and allows you to automate tasks. This will enable you to spend less time doing repetitive and mundane tasks and become more productive. Your system will become your assistant to help you get things done 24/7.

It isn’t just meant to tell you the current weather or answer sports questions. Instead, it can be used from the comfort of your PC to enable integration between apps and services like Microsoft 365 in an Azure environment. If you are familiar with IFTTT (If This Then That), you can quickly pick it up, as the idea is similar but specific to Windows PCs, desktop apps, and web apps.

5 Automate repetitive tasks

Stop the boredom and monotony

Power Automate can help with some of the more tedious steps in your workflow. For instance, it can be frustrating to start your day sorting and managing hundreds of emails in Outlook. It’s time for your first break two hours later, and you don’t feel like you’ve accomplished much yet. So, you put downloading email attachments on autopilot. An automation in Power Automate is called a Flow, which consists of triggers and actions. The idea is essentially the same if you are familiar with setting up automation in the Task Scheduler utility. You can automate your Outlook inbox, calendar events, reminders, and to-do tasks. You can set up a Flow to monitor your inbox, automatically download attachments, and save them to Microsoft OneDrive or Dropbox.

Other mundane tasks in your day may involve managing files. You can set up a Flow to open specific folders in File Explorer (as many as you need). Opening essential folders you will need for a session saves you time, so you don't have to hunt down files and individually open them. It also improves your productivity when working with dozens of directories daily.

Also, no one likes printing or dealing with printers, so you could have Power Automate print items for you automatically. Or, if you're tired of clicking to launch the same apps all the time, create an automation to run certain apps when you sign in or launch another related app. For example, when you open Word, it can trigger other helpful websites and apps to engage so they are ready for use. You can have it manage PDFs or set your browser to open specific web pages.

Whatever computing tasks you find time-draining can be automated on your PC with Power Automate. These are just a few ideas of the endless possibilities where Power Automate can improve workflow speed. Once things are fine-tuned and working optimally, you will have time to focus on the work that matters.

4 Make things easier in Microsoft Office

Complex and redundant Office jobs become a cinch

Anyone working on a Microsoft Office project knows things can sometimes get overwhelming. You might cringe when opening a large spreadsheet or document. The cool thing is that you'll feel less anxious once you set up Power Automate to handle some tedious tasks for you.

It allows you to create a Flow to take some of your MS Office work off your plate and do it automatically in the background. It also allows you to pop in scripts like the Task Scheduler utility to make automated tasks more powerful. To simplify things, it has several built-in templates for the tasks you wish to complete. If you do a lot of work in Excel, you can create an automation to extract data from Excel reports into spreadsheets, or automatically update an Excel spreadsheet using data from a Microsoft Form, which can be an asset when crunching numbers.

You can also build custom templates through connectors and actions for the most detail-oriented work you must complete in Office. In addition, Microsoft’s Power Automate community has created hundreds of templates. A group of helpful users constantly generate Flows and post them for the Power Automate community. You can implement them and edit them to suit your specific needs.

3 No coding

Automate tasks without writing code

Power Automate is GUI-based, meaning you don’t need to write a bunch of code to automate tasks like using PowerShell to automate functions. Sure, having a basic grasp of coding and some scripts will help fully unleash the automation tool. For instance, if you add scripts to the Task Scheduler on Windows to automate tasks, you can set Flows exactly how you want them for specific jobs. However, it’s easy to edit an existing Flow or create one from scratch using the user interface and parameters for your task. If you need something different later, you can always edit your automation easily, with or without coding knowledge.

2 Flexibility

Automations that work exactly your way

Once you have created your Flows, they are all available to access from one centralized location. If your needs change, you can return and edit the parameters of how the automation works. Or, you can delete one and start over from scratch. You can also start and stop automations from the dashboard. The beauty is that you have full control, and managing your Flows is straightforward. You can change things when and how you want. There is more flexibility in controlling your automation tasks than you'd find when using the Task Scheduler utility. The user interface is more user-friendly and includes more powerful options.

1 The price can’t be beat

Running it on a local PC is free(ish)

The Power Automate app is built into Windows 11, so the only cost is in the license included with your new PC or a separate Windows key purchased for a fresh Windows installation. However, if you want to go beyond the confines of a single desktop, some features require a payment or subscription. So, if you aren’t going beyond your PC, most features are free for personal use.

It's also important to note that while it comes preinstalled on Windows 11, you can also download it for Windows 10 if you have an older system. One other factor is that Power Automate doesn't natively run on macOS or Linux. However, you can work around this by running it in a virtualization environment. Another thing you could do is run the cloud-based version of Power Automate; although it isn't free, you can try it for a 30-day trial period.

So, while free for most features on a single PC, it may require some investment to use certain complex automations or to reach remote computers. You can think of it as free with “in-app purchases." The features that cost money are generally geared toward enterprise-level IT admins, power users, and home lab enthusiasts. For more details, you can check out the Microsoft Power Automate plans and pricing page. Still, the app is free for Windows 10 and 11 systems, and most local-level automations are free to use. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced pro, try Power Automate, and you will save time and perhaps even automate the majority of your repetitive workflow.

Make things happen automatically on your Windows PC with Power Automate

If you are new to this automation tool, try some of the basic examples suggested here to get started. You can run them as is or tweak them to your liking. Starting here will immediately improve your workflow by freeing you from repetitive tasks so you can focus on what matters most.

Whether you just need tedious Windows housekeeping tasks taken care of, want to go all in with Excel spreadsheet data extraction formulas, or need to automatically open files, folders, or web apps, Power Automate provides a straightforward way there.