Microsoft sprinkles some AI magic onto PowerToys v0.81.0 with new Advanced Paste tool

Hitting a new release cycle, Microsoft has unleashed PowerToys v0.81.0 complete with a brand-new module. With the arrival of the Advanced Paste utility, users gain access to a AI-powered clipboard that makes it possible to paste copied text in any format needed.

It is possible to use a range of keyboard shortcuts to paste text as plain text, markdown, or JSON, but there are plenty more features baked into Advanced Paste. Harnessing AI, the module can use natural language descriptions to explain what you want to do to the copied text. There are also plenty more changes and additions.

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The possibilities here are extensive. You could opt to paste the text you have copied with formatting for coding, you could have it translated before pasting, or you can have the text reworded in a different style or tone.

In order to take advantage of this incredibly powerful pasting tool, you'll need to pay for OpenAI credits and give PowerToys access to your OpenAI API key. The arrival of what amounts to paywalled features is a first for PowerToys, and it will be interesting to see if this is a sign of what's to come.

More details about Advanced Paste are available here, and PowerToys v0.81.0 can be downloaded here.

In addition to the new Advanced Paste module, Microsoft points out a number of other highlights to be found in PowerToys v0.81.0:

• Command Not Found now uses the PowerShell Gallery release and now supports ARM64. Thanks @carlos-zamora!
• Fixed most accessibility issues opened after the latest accessibility review.
• Refactored, packaged and released the main Environment Variables Editor, Hosts File Editor and Registry Preview utilities functionality as controls to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

The company also shares the following extensive changelog for the latest PowerToys release:

Highlights

• New utility: Advanced Paste, an AI powered tool to convert your clipboard content into another format. Thanks @craigloewen-msft for the core functionality and @niels9001 for the UI/UX design!
• Command Not Found now uses the PowerShell Gallery release and now supports ARM64. Thanks @carlos-zamora!
• Fixed most accessibility issues opened after the latest accessibility review.
• Refactored, packaged and released the main Environment Variables Editor, Hosts File Editor and Registry Preview utilities functionality as controls to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

General

• Fixed crashes on older CPUS by updating .NET to 8.0.4. (This was a hotfix for 0.80)

Advanced Paste

• New utility: Advanced Paste, an AI powered tool to convert your clipboard content into another format. Thanks @craigloewen-msft for the core functionality and @niels9001 for the UI/UX design!

AlwaysOnTop

• Enable border anti-aliasing. Thanks @ewancg!

Color Picker

• Improved accessibility by making the Settings and Copy to clipboard buttons focusable.
• Improved accessibility by supporting picking a color using the keyboard.

Command Not Found

• Upgraded the Command Not Found to use the new PowerShell Gallery release and support ARM64. Thanks @carlos-zamora!

Environment Variables Editor

• Refactored, packaged and released the main Environment Variables Editor functionality as a control to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

FancyZones

• Fixed window wrap around behavior when overriding Windows key and arrow shortcuts on single monitor scenarios. Thanks @DanRosenberry!
• Improved accessibility of the editor by listing the keyboard shortcuts in the Canvas Editor.

File Explorer add-ons

• Updated Monaco to 0.47 and added the new sticky scroll setting for DevFiles viewer. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Added the new font size setting for DevFiles viewer. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Added support for .srt (subtitle) file previewing in DevFiles viewer. Thanks @PesBandi!

Hosts File Editor

• Refactored, packaged and released the main Hosts File Editor functionality as a control to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

Image Resizer

• Supported narrator announcing the checkboxes in the UI and the sizes combobox. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Improved accessibility by increasing contrast in the text color of combobox items.

Installer

• Fixed some install failures when the folders the DSC module is to be installed in isn't accessible by the WiX installer. (This was a hotfix for 0.80)
• Detecting install location for DSC now uses registry instead of WMI to improve performance. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed an error causing the machine scope installer to not install correctly in machines where the documents folder is in a UNC network path. We're still working in a fix for the user scope installer.

Keyboard Manager

• Fixed startup crashes in the editor when the Visual C++ Redistributable wasn't installed. (This was a hotfix for 0.80)
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the first button wasn't focused after adding a new row in the editor.
• Environment Variables are now expanded in arguments of programs started through a shortcut. Thanks @HydroH!

Paste as Plain Text

• Paste as Plain Text was removed as a separate utility, since its functionality is now part of the Advanced Paste utility.

Peek

• Updated icons, tweaked UI and refactored internal code. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
• Updated Monaco to 0.47 and added the new sticky scroll setting for DevFiles viewer. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Added the new font size setting for DevFiles viewer. Thanks @Aaron-Junker!
• Upgrade the SharpCompress dependency to 0.37.2 and fixed archive parsing. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed aliasing in the image viewer.
• Added support for .srt (subtitle) file previewing in DevFiles viewer. Thanks @PesBandi!

Power Rename

• Fixed the descriptions that were mixed up in the regex helper (\S and \w).

PowerToys Run

• Added support for UNC paths starting with // in the Folder plugin. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed the plugin load failed message to list the failed plugins. Thanks @belkiss!
• Icons for MSIX packages are now updated when a package update is detected. Thanks @HydroH!
• Use Mica backdrop instead of Acrylic to fix random crashes caused by the Windows composition being momentarily turned off.
• Improved accessibility in the results list action buttons by improving contrast of hovered/focused buttons.

Quick Accent

• Added support for the Esperanto character set. Thanks @salutontalk and @ccmywish!
• Added the ǽ and ϑ characters. Thanks @PesBandi!

Registry Preview

• Refactored, packaged and released the main Registry Preview functionality as a control to be integrated into DevHome. Thanks @dabhattimsft for validating and integrating into DevHome!

Text Extractor

• Fixed an issue causing the Settings page to not be opened when clicking the Settings button in Text Extractor's overlay. (This was a hotfix for 0.80)

Settings

• Improved UI ordering of the File Explorer add-ons. Thanks @niels9001!
• Applied fixes to theme overriding and cleaned up unneeded code. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed misspells in references to the Hosts File Editor utility. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Improved accessibility of the Select Folder button in the Settings Backup UI.
• Improved accessibility by improving focus and tab navigation in the ColorPicker page. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Added a description to the fallback encoder setting in the Image Resizer page. Thanks @Kissaki!
• Refactored and improved performance in the PowerToys Run plugins UI in the Settings page. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Fixed a crash when a user cleared the contents of a Number Box in the PowerToys Run plugins additional options. Thanks @htcfreek!
• Update the PATH environment variables with the user scope PATH when entering the Command Not Found page to improve PowerShell detection.

Documentation

• Added the WebSearchShortcut plugin to PowerToys Run thirdPartyRunPlugins.md docs. Thanks @Daydreamer-riri!
• Updated COMMUNITY.md with the project managers that are part of the core team.
• Improved the DSC samples.
• Added the 1Password plugin to PowerToys Run thirdPartyRunPlugins.md docs. Thanks @KairuDeibisu!
• Added the UnicodeInput plugin to PowerToys Run thirdPartyRunPlugins.md docs. Thanks @nathancartlidge!

Development

• Updated System.Drawing.Common to 8.0.5 to fix CI builds after the .NET 8.0.5 upgrade was released.
• Fixed file permissions when doing a build using cache on PR CI. Thanks @dfederm!
• Removed the Test SDK reference on ARM64 to fix local building for ARM64. Thanks @dfederm!
• Replaced make_pair with RemapBufferRow in Keyboard Manager internal code. Thanks @masaru-iritani!
• Added CODEOWNERS file to protect sensitive parts of the repo. Thanks @htcfreek for the help in figuring out how to make the spellcheck folder an exception!
• Added comments in code. to make it clear what the error badge in PowerToys Run plugin list in Settings means. Thanks @Jay-o-Way!
• Enabled caching by default in the PR CI pipelines. Thanks @dfederm!
• Disabled caching for PR started from forks, since those were failing. Thanks @dfederm!
• Removed baseline files for policy checking and turned on the "TSA" process in the release pipelines instead.
• Added caching of nuget packages in the PR CI pipelines. Thanks @dfederm!
• Updated the release CI pipelines TouchdownBuildTask to v3.
• Moved the release CI pipelines to ESRPv5.
• Added a policy for GitHub Copilot Workspaces for the repo on GitHub. Thanks @Aaron-Junrker!