Microsoft PowerToys adds mic/camera mute, Find My Mouse

Microsoft’s PowerToys suite of utilities has added two new features: Find My Mouse, and a new Video Conference Mute capability. The updated suite is available from the Microsoft Store app within Windows 10 and 11.

PowerToys debuted in 2020, and contrary to what the name suggests, includes a suite of useful though niche utilities that supplement Windows’ own features. The suite debuted with FancyZones, a much more powerful version of the Snap capabilities in Windows 10 or even Windows 11. In it you’ll find tools for batch resizing photos, batch renaming files, a color picker, a tool to override your PC’s power settings, and so on.

One new feature, “Video Conference Mute,” is pretty self explanatory. Although many PCs include dedicated “mic mute” buttons, not all of them include dedicated controls to disable your camera, too. If Video Conference Mute is on, you’ll be able to tap the WIN+N key to toggle your mic and video together on and off, or else use the WIN+Shift+A key to turn off your mic or Win+Shift+O to toggle your camera on and off. In practice, this seemed a little wonky. In Zoom, for example, the camera setting had to be set to “PowerToys Videoconference Mute” for the toggle to work.

Find My Mouse is an assistive technology that may seem a little superfluous, if you’re simply used to twitching your mouse pointer back and forth to locate it on a large screen or multiple displays. For those who may have problems with that particular motion, however, Find My Mouse can zoom in on the cursor simply by tapping the left CTRL button twice. A spotlight of sorts will then zoom in on the mouse cursor, highlighting it.

PowerToys can be downloaded via GitHub, though the project is now part of the Microsoft Store app, too. Simply open the Store, search for “PowerToys” and the app will download. You may have to enter PowerToys’ Settings menu to turn individual features on and off and adjust their capabilities, however.