What Power Display Is and Why It Matters
Power Display is a new PowerToys monitor control feature that lets you adjust your screens directly from the Windows taskbar system tray. Instead of hunting for tiny physical buttons on your monitor or digging through Windows taskbar display settings, you get a simple icon that exposes key display controls with a single click. Once enabled, Power Display detects your desktop or laptop screens and surfaces whatever controls your hardware supports. At a minimum, you can change brightness via a slider, but many monitors also expose contrast, color temperature, rotation, and volume. For multi-monitor setups, Power Display can show separate sliders per screen, making system tray monitor adjustment far quicker than shuffling between on-screen display menus. Because it lives inside the broader PowerToys productivity features suite, it integrates cleanly with other utilities you may already use, such as window management and keyboard tools.
How to Install or Update PowerToys for Power Display
To use Power Display, you first need the latest version of Microsoft PowerToys on your Windows 10 or 11 PC. If you already have PowerToys installed, open it and use the built-in updater to move to version 0.99.1 or later, which includes the new monitor control feature. If PowerToys isn’t on your system yet, you can download it from the Microsoft Store or grab it from the project’s GitHub page, then follow the standard installer steps. Once installation is complete, launch PowerToys from the Start menu and let it run in the background. The app will place its own icon in the taskbar, and from there, its tools—including Power Display—can integrate into your daily workflow. Keeping PowerToys updated ensures you also benefit from other enhancements, like changes to Command Palette, Keyboard Manager Editor, and ZoomIt.
Enabling Power Display and Customizing Its Controls
With PowerToys running, open its settings window and locate the entry for Power Display in the left-hand sidebar. Select it to access the dedicated settings page, then toggle the switch to enable the feature. You can customize the activation shortcut so that opening the monitor panel fits your existing habits—for example, a specific key combination or mouse action. Power Display also lets you create and save custom profiles, useful if you routinely switch between work, gaming, or movie-watching configurations. Within the settings, you can enable or disable individual sliders such as brightness, contrast, color temperature, rotation, and volume, depending on what your monitor exposes. This way, your taskbar display settings panel stays uncluttered and focused on the options you actually use. Once configured, a Power Display icon appears in the system tray; clicking it reveals the per-monitor controls instantly.
Using Monitor Controls from the System Tray
After configuration, using PowerToys monitor control is straightforward. Click the Power Display icon in the system tray to open a compact panel listing each detected monitor. For each screen, you’ll see one or more sliders, such as brightness or contrast, matching the capabilities of your hardware. Dragging a slider updates the monitor in real time, so you can fine-tune levels without leaving the desktop or interrupting your active apps. On multi-monitor setups, you can adjust each display independently without cycling through on-screen display menus or Windows settings pages. This makes quick changes—like dimming a secondary screen or rotating a portrait display—much faster. The system tray monitor adjustment approach is especially helpful if your monitors are wall-mounted, hard to reach, or if you frequently shift between different lighting conditions during the day.
Complementary PowerToys Tools That Boost Your Workflow
Power Display is part of a growing set of PowerToys productivity features designed to streamline everyday tasks. The new Grab And Move tool, for example, makes window management easier: hold the Alt key and left-click anywhere in a window to move it, or Alt plus right-click to resize horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. You can change the activation key to the Windows key, prevent it from running when Game Mode is on, and exclude specific apps. Other recent improvements include the ability to pin favorite commands in Command Palette, simpler editing in Keyboard Manager Editor when remapping keys, and scrolling screenshots in ZoomIt for capturing long pages. Used together, these tools help reduce friction across your workflow—whether you’re managing multiple displays, shuffling windows on a large monitor, or capturing and annotating content for presentations.