Do you need to quickly resize a group of images in Windows 10? Microsoft’s PowerToys utility allows you to do this right from File Explorer with a right click – no need to open an image editor. Here’s how to set it up and use it.
What is PowerToys Image Resizer?
Easily resizing or resizing images is just a few clicks away in Windows 1
When fully configured, Image Resizer allows you to right-click on a set of images in File Explorer (or on your desktop) and resize it to a pre-configured or custom size. The resulting modified images are written to the same location as the source images.
RELATED: All PowerToys from Microsoft for Windows 10, explained
Step 1: Install PowerToys and enable Image Resizer
First, if you don’t already have it – it isn’t installed by default – you will need to download Microsoft PowerToys from Microsoft’s website.
The latest release is usually listed at the top of that download page. Look for an EXE file such as “PowerToysSetup-0.27.1-x64.exe ”. Download and run that file.
After the installation process is complete, launch PowerToys from your desktop or Start menu and click “Image Resizer” in the sidebar. Next, make sure the “Enable Image Resizer” switch is set to “On”.
Then you can close the PowerToys window and try resizing images in File Explorer.
Step 2: Resize images in File Explorer or Desktop
When Image Resizer is enabled, image resizing is just a few clicks away. First, find the images you want to resize in File Explorer or on your desktop.
Select a group of images with your mouse and right click on it. Select ‘Resize Images’ from the menu that appears.
An Image Resizer window will open. Choose the desired image size from the list (or enter a custom size), select the options you want and click on ‘Resize’.
After that, the resized images will appear in the same folder as the source images. You can do this with as many images as you want. Useful!
Optional: Configure the Image Resizer settings
To configure the image sizes listed in the Image Resizer window that appears when you resize images, launch PowerToys and then click “Image Resizer” in the sidebar.
On the Image Resizer options page, you will see three main sections that allow you to configure how Image Resizer works.
First, you’ll see a section called “Image Formats” that defines a set of profiles you can choose from when you start Image Resizer (there’s also a custom size option when you run it). Here you can edit any of the included profiles or add your own predefined custom size.
Then you will see a section “Encryption”. By default, Image Resizer saves the resized image in the source file format, but if it fails, it saves the image in the format specified in the “Fallback Encoder” option here. You can also specify the JPEG quality level, PNG interlacing, or TIFF compression.
Finally, in the “File” section you can specify the file name format of the changed images. The default contains the original file name plus the size you selected.
You don’t technically need to change any of these settings to use Image Resizer, but it’s good to be familiar with it in case you want to tweak how it works later on. Have fun resizing!
