PowerToys
Microsoft's free, open-source collection of utilities that extend Windows for power users.
Liked as a bundle of useful Windows utilities,123 especially the Alt+Space command bar, FancyZones window management and Find My Mouse.456 The main limit raised is that it stays on Windows;7 one commenter missed its color picker after switching to Linux and found Linux alternatives lacking.8
Why people recommend it
Utility collection · 3
Commenters value it as a set of handy tools that make Windows more pleasant to use and develop on.
“Tons of great utils for Win10/11 (I'm off of 11 cuz fuck that noise, but when I was on win10 I used it).”
“Also available natively to the OS (Windows) with PowerToys”
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“Power Toys, WSL, a great Terminal, it's an okay machine to develop”
Command bar · 1
The Alt+Space command bar is described as much better than Windows Search.
“On Windows I use PowerToys' Alt+Space command bar which does a much better job. In fact, it's the only search I use on Windows.”
Window management · 1
FancyZones window management is said to beat macOS's built-in window handling.
“I like Windows, in terms of the desktop UX (with PowerToys).”
Find My Mouse · 1
Its spotlight mode, triggered by pressing Ctrl twice, is useful for presentations.
“Windows Powertoys (particularly Find my mouse spotlight mode for presentation by pressing Ctrl twice)”
Color picker · 1
Its color picker was missed enough that a former user built a Linux replacement.
“I've been missing powertoys color picker when i switched to Linux”
Caveats and dissent
Windows only · 1
A user who moved to Linux missed the color picker, and Linux alternatives didn't match its features.
“I've been missing powertoys color picker when i switched to Linux”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Archtoys – a fast, PowerToys-style color picker for Linux (Rust and Slint) 1 mention
- iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 1 mention
- OCR It – pull text out of un-copyable documents for your LLM 1 mention
- You need to stop using Windows 11 [video][14 mins] 1 mention
- WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access 1 mention
- Microsoft Download Center Archive 1 mention
Data: powertoys.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 7
“I've been missing powertoys color picker when i switched to Linux”
“On Windows I use PowerToys' Alt+Space command bar which does a much better job. In fact, it's the only search I use on Windows.”
“Also available natively to the OS (Windows) with PowerToys”
“I like Windows, in terms of the desktop UX (with PowerToys).”
“Power Toys, WSL, a great Terminal, it's an okay machine to develop”
“Tons of great utils for Win10/11 (I'm off of 11 cuz fuck that noise, but when I was on win10 I used it).”
“Windows Powertoys (particularly Find my mouse spotlight mode for presentation by pressing Ctrl twice)”