One of PowerToys’ best tools is about to get a massive upgrade

Peek is one of the best PowerToys tools you can use to make your Windows 11 File Explorer better and take it one step closer to feature parity with macOS’ Finder. However, that doesn’t mean PowerToys Peek is as good as Finder’s Quick Look function, which also has support for macOS’ command line.

Now, it looks like Microsoft wants to close this gap with macOS’ Quick Look by upgrading Peek’s capabilities. The software giant has started working on a new Peek feature that will give PowerToys users more ways to preview files on Windows. And the best part is that we also know when Microsoft is planning to release the feature.

PowerToys Peek will soon step into a new territory

For those unaware, PowerToys Peek allows users to preview files from File Explorer by selecting a file and then pressing Ctrl + Space on the keyboard. macOS Finder’s Quick Look function also has the same purpose: it allows users to preview files without opening them in full apps. On macOS, it feels slightly easier, as you need to only press the Space key after selecting the file to take previews.

However, this isn’t what puts macOS’ alternative slightly ahead. Many power users would want to use the QuickLook function simply because it also has a command-line utility called “qlmanage,” which you can use to trigger Quick Look previews from Terminal. This may not be that useful for casual users, but developers and other power users can benefit from it in many ways.

Microsoft is also planning to do something similar with PowerToys Peek. One of Peek’s upcoming features will be support for the command line, according to a pull request on Microsoft PowerToys’ GitHub page. As per the description, users will be able to use the Windows command line and type “PowerToys.Peek.CLI.exe ” to preview a file.

This means, if you’re using a command line on Windows, you won’t need to switch to File Explorer to preview a file. All that’s required of you is to type the command line followed by the name of the file to preview. It’ll open the same preview window that you see upon triggering Peek by pressing the Ctrl + Space key.

When is the feature coming to PowerToys?

As much as we’d love to see this natively built into Windows, PowerToys is currently the only way to use the Peek feature. And since it’ll soon have its command line utility, power users may finally start considering Peek as a strong contender to its macOS counterpart. And you don’t have to wait very long for this.

According to the pull request on GitHub, Microsoft is set to introduce this feature in PowerToys version 0.95. The current PowerToys update is version 0.93, and the next is version 0.94, which is expected to arrive in September. So, we can expect PowerToys version 0.95, which will include Peek’s new feature, in October this year.