Microsoft powertoys is about about two years old and I have been using it for few months only. It is not a single tool but a collection of different tools and it is very actively maintained and developed on GitHub. If contains the following tools:
- Color Picker
- Fancy Zones
- File Explorer
- Image Resizer
- Keyboard Manager
- Power Rename
- Powertoys Run
- Shortcut Guide
The tool I use most among these is Powertoys Run. Infact, I came across Microsoft PowerToys because I was looking for a replacement for Launchy which I have been using for more than a decade but it is not longer actively maintained. I have blogged about the transition here. The idea behind Launchy/Powertoys Run is simple. Press a keyboard shortcut (Alt+Space), and it pop a single floating text control, already focused to accept the input and you can type in a name of the program you want to run or a file or folder you are looking for. Powertoys Run can located any executable indexed by Windows search. So, if you maintain a folder of portable tools like I do, simply make sure that the folder is in Windows Search Index. It is a major productivity booster for me.
Other than Powertoys run, I use keyboard manager to remap some keys on my laptop to make them more suitable for programming/text editing. Previously, I used to use SharpKeys but now I exclusively use keyboard manager.
I have not actively used other tools but color picker looks good and in future I might replace Just Color Picker with it.
- Cost: Opensource (MIT License)
- URL: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys