Anyone who follows my work will know that PowerToys is an essential piece of software for me whenever I use a Windows 11 PC. Features like FancyZones, Workspaces, PowerRun, and New+ make this toolkit an incredibly versatile and useful app that belongs on everyone's computer. I've even argued that many of these features ought to be included in Windows natively.

But as great as PowerToys is, there's always room for improvement, and I wanted to dream up some things I'd love to see added to the arsenal. Admittedly, some of these could also be added into Windows directly, but most of them make more sense as part of this suite of "power tools", so to speak. Let's get right into it.

Workspaces in PowerToys Run

Better integration is always good

This first one isn't an entirely new feature, but it's something that I think is sorely missed in the current implementation of PowerToys Run (or the Command palette). There's a distinct lack of integration with the many other PowerToys features, and the most notable example to me is Workspaces.

Workspaces is an extremely useful feature that lets you take a snapshot of your currently open apps, including open windows and their positions, and then quickly launch them all in one go. You can instantly open a specific set of apps you may need for a given project, saving you time and headaches setting everything up.

However, Workspaces still requires you to specifically open the Workspaces window to launch a specific set, which makes it a bit of wasted potential, and I'm honestly surprised there's no integration with PowerToys Run. being able to quickly type a shortcut for a given workspace and launch instantly using just the keyboard would be fantastic. Since you can also set Workspaces to use existing windows, this would also potentially offer an easy way to switch between workspaces quickly, so you can swap between groups of apps with much less hassle. It just seems like a no-brainer, and I'm honestly surprised it hasn't been done yet.

Image converter

Guess what this one is about

It's not something I need all the time, but whenever I do need it, I love that my Mac makes it super easy to convert images using Raycast and a simple extension. Most of the time, it's simply because PNG files are fairly large and I just want to convert them to JPG, and honestly, I wish PowerToys had a similarly simple feature.

Right now, if I want to reduce the size of an image, I have to use Image Resizer, which means changing the resolution of it, and I have to tweak the parameters beforehand to get the result I want. All I really need sometimes is a different format, and I wish it was just a simple option in the context menu of File Explorer. It's not a ground-breaking tool, but it would make things much more convenient.

Automatic screenshots

A niche need, but that's what PowerToys is for

Another one I don't really need all the time, but taking screenshots automatically has come in handy quite often for me when covering livestreamed events (when there are no press releases ahead of time, anyway). It's hard to stay on top of everything that's being said while also grabbing images, so I typically set up automatic screenshots every second or two and have them uploaded to a temporary cloud folder so all our writers can access them.

Obviously, this isn't something everyone needs, but Microsoft has shown a clear interest in improving screen captures with the Snipping Tool, and this kind of use case seems like the perfect example of something a "power user" might need. It's very useful in specific scenarios, and that's what PowerToys is all about.

Mouse button customization

Replace all the proprietary software

Few things are as annoying as cool hardware products that require bloated proprietary software to function as intended, and one great example are computer mice. More ergonomic and advanced mice like the Logitech MX Master 3S have a few extra buttons like the forward and back buttons on the side, or the hidden button in the thumb rest area.

I never install the Logi Options+ app on my PC, though, because it just seems unnecessary to have an app just for products from a specific company. I understand building an all-encompassing solution would be quite challenging, but I'd love it if PowerToys could add a way to customize extra mouse buttons on higher-end mice without needing proprietary software from different brands. Simply being able to launch an app or map a keyboard shortcut to a given button would be incredibly useful and improve a lot of these products for many people.

Monitor controls

It's long overdue

I mostly work on a desktop computer with an external monitor, and one thing I've quickly realized is that Windows 11 and macOS don't actually play very nice with the communication protocol used by external monitors. Oftentimes, these monitors have proprietary software to change settings like brightness, contrast, or color balancing.

Solutions already exist for this problem, such as ClickMonitorDDC and Twinkle Tray, but this is an old problem that somehow still hasn't been solved. ClickMonitorDDC is an old enough app that it hasn't technically been supported in many years, and it's only available as a redistribution by someone unrelated to the project. Yet, a proper solution still hasn't been built into Windows.

And if it's not going to be, then at the very least, this is something that needs to be in PowerToys. It's an incredibly useful feature I always set up on Windows, and it's also on my Mac Mini. It needs to be more easily accessible, though.

Level up PowerToys

These are just some of my personal requests, but with something as wide-reaching as PowerToys, I'm sure many others will come up with their own ideas for what could be added to make it even better. I'd love to hear other thoughts on this; after all, PowerToys is a community-driven effort, so making these requests could have some positive impact later down the line. If you haven't used PowerToys yet, you can chekc it out below.