What is PowerToys?

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What is PowerToys?

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Some powerful toys?!? All right, it is a free tool from Microsoft and allows window users to improve their productivity while working on websites or apps. It is also a useful tool that I found.

Always on Top

This is a quick and easy-to-pin app(s) on top. Maybe you need a calculator to calculate px to rem and your main screen is occupied by currently running app(s). Or you require an image reference without going and back forth between the image and the running app. Use this shortcut win + ctrl + T on the app that you want to be on top of all app(s). Also, the app will show borders. You can customize its thickness and colour! How cool is this!!

Colour Picker

This is a tool that enables you to pick colours from any running app(s). Let’s say you want to know what colour is Baby Yoda. Activate this tool by pressing win + shift + C, and it will show a colour window in hex code.

Once you clicked, another window will pop up and shows the colour code in hex, RGB, and HSL. You will see a range of the clicked colour from light to dark. It also will remember these previous colours you have clicked.

FancyZones

This tool allows you to arrange and snap windows into the layouts you want. This tool offers a couple of default layouts and the shortcut is win + shift + Tilda key. If you don’t like any of these default layouts, you can create a new layout that suits your need.

Tilda key - it is next to number 1 and looks like `

To snap the window to a specific area

  • Press shift + click the window app
  • The screen will show a dark colour area with a number
  • Drag the app to the area you want

You also can snap more than one app to the same area. You can switch windows by pressing win + PgUp/PgDn. This is a new shortcut that I learned today! 😲

Image Resizer

If you have large-size images and this is the tool for you! It allows you to re-size images. Right-click on the image(s) and select the resize picture option from the menu. The tool offers 5 default options, small, medium, large, phone, and custom.

Recap

PowerToys is packed with a ton of awesome features. The listed features are what I am using the most. You can check this documentation to see more features. Which one is your favorite? Leave your comment below! Mine is FancyZones! 😊