Every Windows 11 User Needs to Install PowerToys
With the rise of multi-screen desk setups, ultrawide monitors, and monster screens like the absurd Samsung Odyssey Ark there’s this really common (and also stupid) issue that most of us run into on a day-to-day basis: actually finding your cursor in that gigantic expanse of screen real estate.
When I sit back down at my desk, it can sometimes take me an embarrassing number of mouse jiggles before I can figure out where my cursor is hiding. MacOS actually has a ‘shake to find’ feature that you can enable, but what about for Windows?
This shouldn’t be that hard, right? All I want is just a button or a keyboard shortcut I can press that will quickly highlight my cursor. Maybe like this:
The Windows utility that I’m showing off here is called, appropriately, Mouse Utilities and it accomplishes this super-simple task exceedingly well. Just tap the Left Ctrl key twice and a black circle will narrow in on your cursor, James Bond-style, making it a snap to find.
Mouse Utilities is part of an open-source collection of Windows utilities called PowerToys. Or, as I’ve come to think of them: “The indispensable add-ons that basically every Windows user needs.”
Today, I’m going to walk through how to install PowerToys and use a couple of these features that, frankly, Windows should have shipped with.
Installing PowerToys
To get PowerToys, start by visiting this Microsoft site, then clicking the blue “Install PowerToys” button. This will take you to a page where you can download and install the app.
If you’ve never downloaded an app from GitHub before, this can feel, to use a technical term, “sketchy AF.” Rest assured, though, that you’re not about to install something shady; Microsoft made this thing, after all.
Scroll down to the bottom portion of the page where you see “Assets”, and look for the .exe file that’s built for your system. If you’re not sure, pick the one with the ‘x64’ suffix.
Download the installer, find it in your downloads folder, then double-click to run it (you’ll need to have administrator credentials on your computer to do this). Agree to the terms and conditions, then click ‘Install’.
After installing, the PowerToys utility will launch automatically and you’ll see its little rainbow-screen icon down in your system tray.
By default, PowerToys will start automatically whenever you turn on your computer. You can disable this behavior if you want in PowerToys settings, but I think it’s better to just leave it on.
Mouse Utilities
Now that we’ve got PowerToys installed and configured, let’s take our new Mouse Utilities for a spin.
First off, try starting out with the example from the start of the article: press the Left Ctrl button twice to reveal your cursor location. Then press any other key to dispel the shadow.
You can also use Mouse Utilities to highlight your left and right clicks. To enable the Mouse Highlighter, press the keyboard shortcut 🪟+ Shift + h. Then try right- and left-clicking and see what happens.
You’ll get yellow circles to highlight your left-clicks and blue ones for your right clicks.
“What’s the use case for highlighting my mouse clicks?” you might ask. If you’re a native Mac user who needs to use Windows for work, you might actually want this. I’ve noticed that Mac users sometimes struggle with right vs. left clicks, especially when using the trackpad on a Windows laptop.
I personally use click-highlighting when I’m trying to demonstrate how to do something in a screencast or a live screenshare. It makes it clearer to the viewers what’s happening on my screen.
To play around with more of the Mouse Utilities settings, you can open Power Toys (by double-clicking its system tray icon), then select Mouse utilities from the sidebar.
There’s a lot more to PowerToys, obviously, than just Mouse Utilities. I’ll be showing off some of the other PowerToys tricks in a future post.
But there’s no reason you have to wait for me. Jump in and start exploring the other Power Toys (aside from maybe not the Hosts File Editor) and let me know what you discover.
