// ENGADGET — HARDWARE & GADGET
Windows PowerToys can automate some of your more tedious PC tasks
Microsoft's free utility pack arranges windows, renames files in bulk and can now be scripted from the terminal.
Many of us find our workdays starting the same way, with that repetition continuing throughout the day. You'll switch your PC on, open your browser, Slack, WhatsApp and Spotify, then spend the next couple minutes dragging each window to sit roughly where it was yesterday. Later, you'll rename a folder of screenshots one after the other. None of it takes terribly long, but it adds up, and Windows doesn't do much to help.
Microsoft PowerToys can handle most of these little chores. It's a free collection of more than 30 utilities that the Windows developer maintains and offers for free on GitHub under an MIT license. It runs on Windows 11 or Windows 10 version 2004 and newer, on both x64 and ARM64 PCs. You can install it from the Microsoft Store, GitHub or via WinGet in the command line (winget install --id Microsoft.PowerToys --source winget), and have the option to toggle each utility within on or off.
Sure, you don't need PowerToys. But if you do the same small jobs every day, a handful of its tools will make them a little bit easier and quicker. If you only install it for one module, it should be FancyZones. Using it goes alongside changing settings that improve your Windows 11 experience to make your everyday PC use better.
The best feature by far, and one I've been using since I bought my ultrawide monitor in 2021, is FancyZones. It splits your screen into "zones" that windows snap into. Once you've installed PowerToys, press Win + Shift + ` (the backtick key) to open the layout editor. There, pick a template or select Create new layout to build a Grid (which you divide and merge) or a Canvas (where zones can overlap).
If that shortcut doesn't work from the start, open PowerToys by searching for it in the Start menu, then on the Home tab, enable the slider for FancyZones.
Once you've created a layout or chosen a template, hold Shift while dragging a window and the zones light up; drop it on one and it'll automatically resize to fit. That means each app you use all the time can have a fixed spot in your eyeline, while turning on Move newly created windows to the last known zone sends apps back to their zones every time they reopen.
You're also able to give custom layouts a number, then apply it with Win + Ctrl + Alt plus that number.
The Workspaces utility goes a step further by automatically opening the apps for you. Press Win + Ctrl + ` to launch its editor (enable it in PowerToys if this doesn't do anything), select Create workspace, arrange your apps and hit Capture. You can then add command-line arguments to each app and save the setup as a desktop shortcut.
Bear in mind that PowerToys can't tell an app where to open, so it launches each one then moves it into position. You'll see the windows jump into place as they load.