Add hot corners functionality to PowerToys

[widersky]

Summary of the new feature/enhancement

Operating systems such as macOS or some Linux distributions have hot corners option in their functionality. It would be great to have something like that in Windows. Although there are third party applications that provide such functionality (e.g. WinX Corners), they are sometimes limited.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

For example, you can set one of the default options:

• Opening the task view
• Opening the start menu
• Opening of the action centre
• Opening Cortana (?)
• Opening the Alt-tab interface
• Execution of own powershell / cmd command

[LRitzdorf]

One thing to note: the Windows 10 interface already includes actions for three of the four screen corners. Clockwise from top right, we have Close Window, Show/Peek At Desktop, and the Start Menu. In addition, for apps with their icon in the upper left corner (and Chrome, before receiving Material Design tabs), clicking there gives options like Restore, Move, Minimize, and Maximize.

To summarize: your idea is appealing, but it seems that (most of) the screen corners are already full.

[widersky]

@LRitzdorf thanks. But I meant the actions that are done when you get to the corner with your mouse, without click. This could speed up work in certain situations. For example, after reaching the upper left corner, a view of tasks would show up.

[LRitzdorf]

Task View from the upper left corner would definitely be useful, but what happens when you try to close a window from the upper right corner and accidentally trigger the associated hot corner action? Just trying to avoid counterproductive results here.

[widersky]

@LRitzdorf Some tools of this type allow you to set a slight delay (500ms for example) to prevent this behavior. Others trigger the action only when "pressure" on a corner is detected (similar to showing a hidden dock in macOS).

[LRitzdorf]

@widersky Excellent point, both of those would certainly help.

[crutkas]

neat idea.

[crutkas]

adding help wanted sticker as it isn't something that we're planning for v1.0. If a community member would love to work with us, happy to spend time with everyone help out with design.

[n18l]

I use an AutoHotKey script to do this exact thing—touching the mouse to the upper left-hand corner of my screen triggers the Task View. It's immensely useful to me, and a habit I picked up from macOS where I do the same gesture to trigger its Task View equivalent, "Mission Control".

I think it's a perfect fit for PowerToys!

For what it's worth, it was previously suggested under #1003 in December, so I know there's been some interest in it for awhile.

Edit: Here's a gist of my AHK hotcorners script. I've tried to document it well so you can customize it to suit your needs, but feel free to comment on the gist with any questions!

[yllekz]

Love this idea and sorely miss this feature from macOS. Would love to see this come to Windows as a PowerToy.

[tps125]

Would love to see this idea implemented as well.

[gpproton]

This totally would make life easier whenever 1 use my windows PC

[Admin-A-LLC]

It would be so useful to have one of the corners prevent sleep/screen saver by default since that feature doesn't seem to exist in windows by default and even 3rd party is clunky at best. It might need to use the same sleep prevention mechanism that media playback apps use, but I'm not sure how that might affect notifications. In any case, sleep prevention is so desperately needed for those who utilize external devices, like microscopes and watching on the screen. The damn computer eternally attempts to sleep because there's no need to touch the keyboard or mouse for extended periods and turning off sleep isn't a very power conservation way to go either.

[sacameron]

Would love to see this! This is one clear usability perk that macOS has over Windows today that I would love to see Windows gain. Seems like a good fit for Power Toys.

[Jay-o-Way]

@widersky You mean like Windows 8 had?

[widersky]

@Jay-o-Way I don't know how it was in Windows 8, I almost don't use this version of Windows.

[cangulo]

If anyone wants a temporal workaround, you can use AutoHotkey as I explain in the following post:

https://carlosangulo.es/blog/productivity/2020-08-02-setting-hot-corners-in-windows-10-with-autohoykey/

[gczark]

I just want to mention the tool OneQuick that we've been used as a reference here https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/3690.

There's a similar feature as shown here.

You can set a command in the stay(beta) to open an app.

[ghost]

but it seems that (most of) the screen corners are already full.

Why are current the screen corners fixed? This feel narrow minded.

What if the windows user do not use this current corners feature because they wish for other actions to increase their productivity?

[Jay-o-Way]

Why are current the screen corners fixed?

@HWilleboordse Because you have a Start button in the bottom-left and every window that is maximized or on the right side will have it's [X] close button in the top-right and you have the Aero Peek function in the bottom right.

[ghost]

Why are current the screen corners fixed?

@HWilleboordse Because you have a Start button in the bottom-left and every window that is maximized or on the right side will have it's [X] close button in the top-right and you have the Aero Peek function in the bottom right.

1 - The start button position depends on the location of the windows bar (the user can drag the windows bar to different screen locations) 2 - Area peek is a feature the user can turn on/off. (Like many I have all visual windows effects turned to speed performance of the OS) 3 - Moving the mouse pointer to a hot area / corner (and not click there) does not effect the windows feature you mentioned and should work fine (as is proven by many other 3rd party utilities and their users)

[ghost]

For now I switched to Samsung Easy Setting Box software. Dell desktop management is also a good alternative.

[prysmanta]

Any update regarding this Hot Corners from Linux/MacOS feature? It would absolutely change my workflow. I've grown tired from troubleshooting WinX Corners (written in pascal ew)

[Cryptic318]

Would also really love to see Hot Corners. As far as I'm concerned that's the primary advantage Mac has over Windows and its something I use constantly on my work machine (a company issued Mac.) I would love a well implemented hot corners function to allow user to set the behavior for each corner.

[h38d7v]

Just wanted to add my voice of support for this feature. With the introduction of the windows 11 centered start button, one of the bigger complaints has been its disregard for Fitt's Law and the left aligned start menu button. Whatever your thoughts on that, there is no denying that a lot of people are used to going there for the start menu. I would see this as the perfect opportunity to keep that start menu muscle memory active, by enabling Start to open once they 'slam' the mouse into that corner. A real productivity boon. I think the best approach is to speed up actions that are already designed to be productivity enhancers. So things like show desktop, snap assist, snipping tool and even enabling lock screen could all be enhanced by enabling the user to 'slam' the mouse into these corners.

[Admin-A-LLC]

I second this. The fact that Windows 11 has now moved the start button over to the middle of the screen now has completely left open for user ALL corners of the screen. I'd take advantage of the muscle memory now and setup something like the PowerToys "Shortcut Guide" or maybe the "PowerToys Run" feature to come up on dragging the mouse to the bottom-left corner. Heck, might as well have it come up on every bottom-left corner of all monitors (in case of multiple monitors) cementing PowerToys into an absolute necessity.

[DennisGaida]

I am personally using WinXcorners (https://github.com/vhanla/winxcorners) which also works on Windows 11.

It looks very clean, but was last updated two years ago. This would be a perfect addition PowerToys. Since this issue is tagged with Help wanted, maybe someone would be inclined to fork this and update to use modern PowerToys approaches.

[Jay-o-Way]

WinXcorners

I think @crutkas would be the right one to connect with those.

[breadteam]

I would LOVE to see this feature! If anybody has any questions about it, take a look at how it is implemented on Mac OS.

On my Mac, I love using the upper right corner to immediately put the screen to sleep! My upper left corner is used to show the desktop, much like Win-d does.

Has there been any further progress, consideration, or interest?

[D-Arora]

I've been reading through the contribution guidelines and working through C# courses to see if I can try to work on an implementation. I'm just not too familiar with C# and Visual Studio so there's a bit of a learning curve.

[n18l]

I just realized that my previous response in this thread committed one of the internet's cardinal sins: Stating I had a solution without sharing it. So for you other hot-corner enthusiasts (at least those comfortable with AutoHotKey), here's a gist of my AHK hotcorners script.

I've tried to document it well so you can customize it to suit your needs, but feel free to comment on the gist with any questions!

Edit: Changing my username awhile back broke the gist link. It's fixed now!

[wedge-one]

I made the mistake of requesting for this feature yesterday without verifying if it was requested before, and of course, it was. But I'm impressed that it has been requested since 2020 and nothing yet.

Is this on the hands of the community to contribute or does it have the hands of MS?

[Jay-o-Way]

Is this on the hands of the community to contribute or does it have the hands of MS?

Both. PowerToys is open source and, even though if has the name "Microsoft" in it, we heavily rely on input from any attributors.

[crutkas]

If you want to help out, we are all for contributions. Happy to sync, crutkas@microsoft.com if you want to directly chat.

[wedge-one]

I'm sorry if I sounded rude, but it was a legit question because there are third-party solutions that offer this feature but I'm very reluctant in using them, and since I already use the PowerToys (love FancyZones), I'd love to see an official solution from MS.

I wish I could contribute but I'm no developer, just an enthusiast!

The most I can do is a graphical mockup for the feature inside PowerToys.

[youngsavage1]

I would like to see hot corners for functions like Turn screen off. Screen saver start. Lock screen.

[atrauzzi]

Top left hotcorner in gnome is incredible.

[rdhar]

There's a fair few implementations of hot corners for Windows already, even recently updated ones like this: https://github.com/timrobertsdev/hotcorners.

Here's a global search of relevant results written in languages varying from Rust to Python and, of course, C#.

It's a great productivity feature which'd a perfect fit for PowerToys (maybe extending the existing Mouse Utilities) and partnering with an existing open-source dev in this space could be a great way to deliver it: just like Den Delimarsky's Awake.

[3dWrecker]

Would be incredibly useful for switching virtual desktops with mouse.

[tiktaalik-dev]

Just to add some perspective from the point of view of a long time Linux user here... We have had this feature for many years in many different desktop environments, but as a KDE Plasma user myself, I find that one to be the most well polished implementation.

For starters, we can choose which action we want to trigger by touching with the mouse pointer on any corner as well as on any edge, like in this capture below:

As you can see there, clicking on each white dot lets me choose what I want to do on that edge or corner, or not doing anything at all. On the top right corner I have enabled "Present Windows", which is similar to the Task Switcher in Windows:

In particular, this is the productivity hack I miss the most when I have to work on a Windows operating system. The sheer convenience of touching on the corner and switching immediately to another window is amazing.

Another useful one is when I touch on the lower right corner, which displays all the virtual desktops laid out as a Desktop Grid. Bonus points because each display (laptop screen and External Display) shows the virtual desktops with the windows that are open on that screen instead of along both screens. The image below shows both displays side by side:

I hope this helps a bit to bring these features to Windows as well :-) fingers crossed

Cheers!

[LisaJackson24-2]

adding help wanted sticker as it isn't something that we're planning for v1.0. If a community member would love to work with us, happy to spend time with everyone help out with design.

From what I can see, it seems that this feature is not a priority for you, despite the significant number of requests from users and the constant duplication of the topic.

Perhaps this project will help you kick-start the implementation of this feature. It is written in C#, which makes it suitable for this project, unlike many others. The only thing missing in its implementation is that the hot corner remains active even in fullscreen applications, leading to false positives. As for everything else, in my opinion, it is well suited as a foundation for implementing this excellent feature.

https://github.com/LucaReggiannini/winycorners

And as for the implementation principle of hot corners as a whole, you can take this excellent project as a basis:

https://github.com/kruizer23/hotframefx

[iamhazel]

I opened PowerToys assuming this feature was included but not yet I guess! Seems a natural fit. Still miss hot corners from growing up on Macs.

[alshdavid]

After using hot corners on Gnome 4x to scatter my desktop and pick the window I want to focus on, I am craving this feature on Windows.

It's so great for productivity. All it essentialy is is detecting the mouse hitting the top left of the screen and opening the "Task View" (same as super+d keyboard shortcut).

[shirkerohit]

I had opened a similar request in 2020 and its end of 2023 and still finding this feature missing from is kind of a sad. Not sure what stopping the development of this feature. :(

[valterm]

It's too bad this is not implemented yet, as the feature is immensely useful. It's something that has nearly completely replaced alt+tabbing for me on my gnome environment. Every couple of months this gets raised in duplicate issues, and this issue still regularly gets comments, so there's definitely interest in this.

[rdhar]

GitHub's search results for "hot corner windows" still returns a number of highly-starred projects in a variety of languages, including:

• C# (@flexits's HotCornersWin, @LucaReggiannini's winycorners)
• Rust (@timrobertsdev's hotcorners)
• Pascal (@kruizer23's hotframefx, @vhanla's winxcorners)

I suppose the difficulty comes from time spent integrating with the existing C#/C++ codebase for any of these project maintainers/contributors.

[timrobertsdev]

Author of https://github.com/timrobertsdev/hotcorners (the Rust implementation) here, I'm more than willing to put in the research and work required to polish up my own project and how it could integrate/package with PowerToys, if there's sufficient interest.

A C++ port isn't out of the question either, I just prefer Rust for what was intended to be a personal project :) It was actually inspired by the same functionality present in GNOME and was the only thing I missed when I came back to Windows.

[Espionage724]

I'm used to the top-left mouse fling for GNOME overview on Linux, and would love this on Windows!

I'll look at the projects mentioned, but I would prefer this to be as-native or official as possible; I have history with explorer/shell modifiers not being ideal or getting outdated/broken with Windows updates.

Edit: Went with https://github.com/timrobertsdev/hotcorners as it looked the most minimal and it works great!

[rdhar]

@Espionage724: Edit: Went with https://github.com/timrobertsdev/hotcorners as it looked the most minimal and it works great!

And wouldn't you know it, the author of that repo (@timrobertsdev) is the immediate comment before yours!

[marecl]

Fat +1 on this feature.

[BertoMejia]

Another fat +1 from me!