Microsoft’s PowerToys has a new toy for power users to play with. The latest update to the app adds media transcoding support through Advanced Paste.
The addition makes it possible to convert video and audio file formats when pasting content. The feature also supports stripping audio away from a video file, which can be quite useful.
Specifically, the update to version 0.89.9 ads the following new paste functions, as outlined by contributor Ani (username drawbyperpetual) on GitHub:
- Transcode to .mp3 – Works against both audio and video files. Extracts the audio channel and saves it as an .mp3 file.
- Transcode to .mp4 (H.264/AAC) – Transcodes video files to use the H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec (if audio is present) and saves the streams to an .mp4 file.
I mostly work with text these days, but back when I worked in local news, I often needed to grab just the audio from a video. Being able to extract the audio channel as an mp3 with a few clicks would have been a very welcome feature in my old newsroom.
Being able to transcode video files to mp4 is also useful, since some videos are in formats that don’t play nicely with certain devices.
Below are the full release notes from GitHub for the latest update to PowerToys.
PowerToys v0.89.0
Highlights
- Enhanced Advanced Paste by adding media transcoding support to convert different video and audio file formats! Thanks @snickler for your help!
- Fixed crashes when loading thumbnails after the .NET 9 update and resolved PowerLauncher.exe blocking other MSI installers from creating shortcuts!
- Fixed accessibility issues across FancyZones, Image Resizer, and Settings to improve screen reader support and clarity!
- Enhanced UI automation framework across modules and added new tests to cover manual checks, with more improvements coming!
General
- Fixed an issue where updating PowerToys on Windows 11 did not properly update context menu entries, impacting New+, PowerRename, Image Resizer, and File Locksmith.
- Updated .NET Packages from 9.0.1 to 9.0.2. Thanks @snickler for this.
- Enabled compatibility with VS17.3 and later, for C++23. Thanks @LNKLEO for this.
Advanced Paste
- Added media transcoding support to convert different video and audio file formats, improved UI layouts, refined clipboard handling, and integrated Semantic Kernel for smarter pasting. Thanks @snickler for your help!
FancyZones
- Fixed accessibility by improving the text for monitors, ensuring clearer naming and help text for screen readers.
Image Resizer
- Fixed issues with Width and Height fields in Image Resizer’s Custom preset, ensuring empty values no longer cause errors, settings save correctly, and auto-scaling behaves as expected. Thanks @daverayment!
- Fixed accessibility by ensuring screen readers announce selected image dimensions in the combo-box for better navigation.
Monaco Preview
- Fixed open link in default browser rather than Microsoft Edge. Thanks @OldUser101!
Mouse Highlighter
- Fixed a highlight released on an Administrator window will start fading, instead of staying on the screen indefinitely until the mouse button is pressed again on an unelevated window.
Mouse Without Borders
- Fixed an issue in service mode where copy-paste and drag-drop file transfers didn’t work, ensuring seamless file operations.
- Enabled GPO for enable/disable for Mouse Without Borders in Service Mode. Thanks @htcfreek for review and comments!
- Fixed code maintainability by refactoring the oversized ‘Common’ class in Mouse Without Borders into smaller, focused classes for better structure and clarity. Thanks @mikeclayton and thanks @htcfreek for review!
PowerRename
- Supported negative value as Start value in regular expression, e.g. ${start=-1314}
- Enhanced RegEx help by adding $, ^, quantifiers, and common patterns for better usability. Thanks @PesBandi and thanks @htcfreek for review.
PowerToys Run
- Fixed crashes when loading thumbnails after the .NET 9 update by disabling CETCompat.
- Fixed PowerLauncher.exe blocking other MSI installers creating shortcuts. Thanks @OneBlue!
- Fixed Run’s dark mode detection to work reliably, preventing issues with incorrect theme detection and ensuring a smoother user experience. Thanks @daverayment!
- Fixed list separator handling in Calculator, allowing functions with multiple arguments to work correctly across different locales. For example pow(2;3) would be replaced with pow(2,3). Thanks @PesBandi and thanks @htcfreek for review!
- Fixed angle unit conversions in the PowerToys Run calculator, allowing quick conversions between radians, degrees, and gradians. Thanks @OldUser101!
Quick Accent
- Added ǎ, ǒ and ǔ to the IPA character set. Thanks @PesBandi!
- Added ` (backtick) and ~ (tilde) to the VK_OEM_5 character set. Thanks @xanatos!
- Added ς (final sigma) to the Greek character set. Thanks @IamSmeagol!
Settings
- Enabled GPO for the “run at startup” setting. Thanks @htcfreek for review and comments!
- Fixed accessibility issue by allowing screen readers to announce the group name for secondary links in Settings pages, instead of reading link descriptions without context.
- Fixed an issue where the Color Picker shortcut was not displaying correctly in the Dashboard.
Workspaces
- Fixed if a window was last placed on a disconnected monitor, it launches minimized and repositions within the main monitor’s visible area when restored, instead of remaining off-screen and invisible.
- Fixed on ARM64 to correctly display icons for packaged apps by resolving path mismatches.
ZoomIt
- Fixed warning C4706 and related error C2220 during build. Thanks @xanatos!
Documentation
- Fixed runner-ipc.md doc on the broken link. Thanks @daverayment!
- Fixed the new plugin checklist by updating the target framework, removing duplicates, and improving statement organization. Thanks @hlaueriksson!
- Updated runner documentation to align with the latest code structure.
Development
- Stabilized pipeline on ARM64 and forked build.
- Added fuzz testing for HostUILib, added as part of pipeline for OneFuzz.
- Fixed and improved UI-Test automation framework, and added new test cases for the FancyZones and Hosts module.
- Optimized Logger function as AOT compatible, improving performance by 18%.
- Made Common.UI and Setting.UI to be AOT compatible.
