PowerToys is a suite of tools for Windows 11 (and 10) and it's aimed at power users of all kinds. It provides users with all kinds of tools to level up their productivity and make things easier and faster overall.

I've been using PowerToys on pretty much every Windows PC that comes by my desk for over a year now, and I cannot recommend it enough. If you haven't tried this app yet, here are a few reasons why you should.

8 It's open-source

Made by the community, backed by Microsoft

Before we get into specific features of PowerToys, it's worth highlighting how PowerToys is set up to continue being supported for a long time. PowerToys is actually a Microsoft project, so you can rest assured it will continue to be supported in Windows without issues. THere's a big synergy between Windows itself and what PowerToys offers.

Despite that, PowerToys is actually open-source. The entire suite is on GitHub, and the community can contribute feedback and their own development efforts. A lot of the tools added to PowerToys are provided by community members who want to bring certain kinds of features to Windows. In the PowerTows window itself, you can often find information about the original developer of a specific feature.

If you're a fan of community-developed software, PowerToys is great, but Microsoft's involvement means the app is bound to be supported by newer versions of Windows and stay in development for longer.

7 Make your keyboard work better for you

Remapping keys can be pretty useful

Remapping keys on your keyboard can be very useful since it potentially gives you ways to take certain actions more easily. For me specifically, I've found this to be particularly helpful during a review I'm currently working on. I've received a laptop that has a German keyboard layout, meaning it has a QWERTZ layout rather than QWERTY. But with PowerToys's Keyboard Manager tool, I was able to swap these keys around so it feels much more natural to type on. Frankly, that's the main reason I'm even including this particular tool on this list.

But that's a very simple change in the grand scheme of things. This tools lets you customize keyboard shortcuts for various things, including launching any app of your choosing. There's quite a lot you can do here.

Oh, and if you're using a foreign keyboard and need a specific accented character, the Quick Accent tool can also help with that.

6 Find your mouse more easily

Tired of looking for your cursor?

Working with a large desktop monitor, losing sight of my mouse has become a far too frequent occurrence for me, and I often wish it was easier to spot. Thankfully, PowerToys has a wide range of tools all focused on the idea of making your mouse cursor easier to find, all under the Mouse utilities tools.

My favorite here is Find My Mouse, which lets you create a highlight circle around your cursor using the activation method of your choice. There are other options like the mouse crosshairs or the highlighter, which can be helpful in other scenarios.

5 Working across devices

One mouse, multiple PCs

Have you ever been working on multiple PCs at the same time and wished you could just use the same mouse and keyboard for all of them? That's where the Mouse Without Borders tool in PowerToys comes into play.

This tool lets you link up to four Windows PCs with a security key and make it so that your mouse seamlessly moves from one PC to the other, and suddenly, you can use your current mouse and keyboard to control those PCs. It's perfect for people who work with multiple computers at the same time, and the best part is even the clipboard can be moved across devices, so you can copy a file on one computer and paste it on another, as long as it's not too big.

It's not a tool I need super frequently, but I've definitely gotten some use out of Mouse Without Borders, and I'm sure many people would feel the same way.

4 Make image resizing easy

More images, no problems

Image Resizer is another tool I love in PowerToys, and it's going to be useful if you're someone who often deals with size restrictions when uploading files. Pictures can often be too large for certain platforms, and if you have a lot of them, it's not really convenient to open the Photos app each time and resize each one.

With this tool, you can select all the images you want in File Explorer and resize them all into a preset size. You can customize your presets to fit your specific needs, and you also have options like whether you want to remove metadata from the images or whether the resied images should replace the originals or create new copies. It can save you a ton of time.

3 Avoid Zoom mishaps

Mute yourself instantly for all apps

With the rise of remote and hybrid work, we were all a bit prone to making mistakes in online meetings. Especially with how many apps we can be forced to learn, between Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and others, it's probably happened to a few people to forget how to mute or turn off their video. Plus, if you're multitasking, you may not have immediate access to the app window to turn off your camera before your child bursts into the room unannounced.

The Video Conference Mute tool helps with this. It allows you to instantly turn off your webcam or microphone for every app using a universal keyboard shortcut, so you don't have to scramble to open the right app and mute yourself before it's too late. Simply press the keyboard shortcut of your choosing, and you've successfully averted a crisis.

2 Boost your productivity on large monitors

FancyZones is a true lifesaver

I've written multiple times about the wonders of FancyZones, and I'm still not tired of singing its praises. Windows 11 does offer pretty good windows management with Snap Layouts, but when you have a 49-inch ultrawide monitor like I do, you need a little more.

FancyZones is amazing because it lets you create customized areas you can snap your apps into, and you can fully tailor the size of the areas you want to use for your ideal layout. I'm a relatively simple man, and I simply split my screen into three areas — two with equal sizes for my writing and reference material, and a smaller third one for messaging apps like Slack or Beeper, which are constantly visible next to the rest of my apps. But the potential for FancyZones is immense, and it's made even better by how easy it is to snap apps into a given slot: just press Shift and hover over the general area, and it all happens instantly.

If you want to take things even further, there's also a more recent tool called Workspaces that can launch multiple apps into specific positions on screen all at once, making it that much easier to get started with your work in the morning.

1 Launch your apps instantly

PowerToys Run is so much better than Windows Search

I don't think I've ever heard anyone praise Windows Search for anything, and frankly, it's kind of justified. The search bar that lives on the taskbar or in the Start menu has its uses, but it's slow and often opens the wrong thing because you type too quickly for it to properly respond.

Enter PowerToys Run, a custom search bar and launcher that's perfect for getting to what you need more quickly. PowerToys Run can be summoned with a keyboard shortcut of your choice, and it's kind of like Spotlight search on macOS. You type the name of the app or file you want, or enter your web search, and you can instantly do it. You can summon it on any screen, and it's always ready to go. It's far more responsive than Windows Search, and better yet, if you want to search the web, it actually respects your default web browser and search engine.

There are numerous plugins, too, which can do things like perform math operations, convert units, or run shell commands using specific prefixes. It's as powerful as you want it to be.

PowerToys is a must-have

No matter your use case, there's something in PowerToys that you probably could use to boost your productivity. I only focused on my personal highlights, but there are a lot more tools here that can be useful to different people.

While PowerToys Run is the number one on my list here, I'd say the one I use the most is probably FancyZones, mostly because I'm accustomed to using Flow Launcher as an alternative to PowerToys Run. But considering PowerToys has all of this built-in, it's much easier to manage than installing different apps for each of these features. I don't think anyone needs to think twice about whether PowerToys is worth it, especially when it's completely free. Give it a shot, and I assure you it will help boost your productivity.