DEV Community

Cover image for Top Windows apps to boost your productivity
Aman Kumar Jagdev
Aman Kumar Jagdev

Posted on

Top Windows apps to boost your productivity

Getting Started

👋🏻 Hey Swift Readers, to keep it simple for you, you can skip the introduction and directly jump to apps by clicking here

Introduction

Since I remember using computers 💻 , I've been a windows 🐱‍💻 user (Except for a few Linux distro switches). I always wanted to improve my experience and I always looked for interesting applications to improve my productivity.
I've been developing for years and I'm still eager to find applications to improve my productivity both for general and development purposes.

More to come!

Many of the apps listed in this article are very feature-rich. I'm doing this as part of a series in which I'll be thoroughly discussing the best possible use cases and setups for each of these applications and their plugins to help you become a productivity god!!
So Stay tuned for updates on this series 😄


Applications

So, I have compiled a shortlist of windows applications that I use regularly to increase my productivity. ✌🏻
The majority of the applications listed here are open source, and their repositories are also related if you want to contribute.

Click on the links below to jump to a particular app
Moreover, Important links are present at the first line of each app for faster usage


Power Toys

Links

What it does?

This is a utility application created by Microsoft. "Windows machine utilities to optimize efficiency," according to Microsoft's description.

In a Nutshell, This small application bundles many fantastic productivity features into a single package that would otherwise require the installation of several individual applications, such as an advanced color picker, Fancy Zones, Keyboard Manager, Power Rename, and much more!

Power Toys HomeScreen

Power Toys Application

Power Toys Color Picker

Color Picker

Above is just one example of what you can achieve with power toys, a full guide will be posted soon!


Windows Terminal

Links

What it does?

It is another Microsoft product that aims to combine all terminals into a single modern, fast, reliable, and effective terminal.

It works for shells such as Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL.

Some of its features are having multiple tabs, panes, and Unicode support, as well as UTF-8 support for all you emoji🤪 fans out there.

But what sets it apart is that it has a GPU-accelerated rendering engine to speed it up and we can also build custom themes and designs for our command line.

Windows Terminal in Action

Windows Terminal in Action

NOTE: The windows terminal will not look exactly like the image above when it is first installed. The full customization and configuration guide will be available soon!


Auto hotkey

Links

What it does?

It is simply a macro-creation and automation utility, that allows users to automate repetitive tasks.

They have their own custom scripting language used to program .ahk (auto hotkey) script files.

At its most potent, this is a very strong tool, and we can achieve incredible results with it. From extending a basic abbreviation to automating the whole system

Auto Hotkey in Action

Auto Hot key in Action

Above is an example of a very simple script that can help you achieve simple automation, but you can look at this post to better understand the Auto Hotkey!


Everything

Links

What it does?

One thing we may all agree on is that Windows search sucks, and while it has improved significantly, it is still far from perfect.

"Everything," on the other hand, is a sophisticated search engine that immediately locates files and directories.

Everything in Action

Everything in Action

The example above shows how you can search for something, but wait for the full guide for more amazing integrations of everything that can make your life even easier.


Quick Look

Links

What it does?
According to their own description, "QuickLook enables a very quick preview of file contents by pressing the Spacebar"

And it does just as it says, bringing up the fast preview functionality of Mac OS inside Windows.

It supports a wide range of major image, video, text, and other file formats!
It will be a game-changer in terms of saving time when previewing files in windows.

Quickly previewing an Image file

Quickly previewing an image file

Quickly previewing a video file

Quickly previewing an video file

What's next?

First and foremost, thank you for reading. If you've made it this far, leave a reaction to show your support!

Check on series updates for complete guides on these individual applications and to further improve your experience with Windows.

Furthermore, feel free to leave a comment with any additional productivity tools for Windows that you use on a regular basis, and let's have a healthy discussion over there. 😄

Top comments (1)

Collapse
 
aaronjunker profile image
Aaron Junker

Totally agree with you