PowerToys is one of my favorite Windows apps and a must-have for people who want to get the most out of Windows 11. We often highlight new and upcoming features for PowerToys, but we rarely get to hear about the most exciting features in the eyes of Niels Laute.
Next week, PowerToys will receive several improvements, including a compact option for Command Palette and a ripple effect for Mouse Highlighter. Laute, who is the project manager of PowerToys and WinUI, shared the features and changes he's looking forward to.
As PM of PowerToys, Laute oversees the development of one of the best free Windows apps. But the app is worked on by several people. Over 300 pull requests contributed to next week's update, and Laute thanked the team for their efforts.
We've known about some of these changes because of the PowerToys preview. For example, on-device Phi Silica support has been in testing over the last two weeks. But next week the changes will ship to everyone using PowerToys.
Command Palette is similar to Spotlight on macOS. Another way to look at it is as what Windows Search should be. The utility can launch apps, open settings, and trigger actions quickly.
Command Palette is a powerful tool, but it can take up quite a bit of space on your screen. Next week's update to PowerToys brings the option to use a compact view for Command Palette.
Mouse Highlighter is a handy tool that lets you find your mouse cursor. It can save you some time if you use multiple monitors or an ultrawide display. But it can feel a bit heavy-handed since it grays out your screen to highlight the cursor. The upcoming ripple effect is more subtle.
Phi Silica is a small language model (SLM). It's perhaps best known for being the model that powers Copilot+ PC features such as Click to Do and on-device rewriting in Word and Outlook.
Phi Silica and other features have been in preview testing for a bit. The next update to PowerToys will make it easier to get preview updates.
Change logs for PowerToys are famously long and detailed, so you can expect the "gazillion" fixes Laute mentions to be listed next week.
I'll update this piece when the new version of PowerToys rolls out and add the complete change log.
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