Microsoft PowerToys’ Crop and Lock lets you make mini app windows
Crop and Lock, available for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 v2004 (19041) or newer, has two modes — a non-interactive Thumbnail crop that’s essentially a live feed of the area you select that updates with the page, and a “Reparent” mode that Microsoft writes is more interactive, but could have compatibility issues with some apps.
You’ll need to make sure the window you want to crop is selected before you enter the shortcut — you can’t just grab any old app window on your screen.
Our own Sean Hollister gave the feature a spin, making a thumbnail crop of his Steam downloads and another crop of his office lights from Home Assistant, so he could keep a small window of only those controls. He found that creating a micro web browser with the Reparent mode was nice, but only allowed for vertical scrolling.
Sean noted that when you close out of the cropped app window, the former, full window reappears.
Microsoft lists a few known issues:
Cropping maximized or full-screen windows in “Reparent” mode might not work. It’s recommended to resize the window to fill the screen corners instead.
Some UWP apps won’t react well to being cropped in “Reparent” mode. The Windows Calculator is a notable example of this.
Applications that use sub-windows or tabs can also react poorly to being cropped in “Reparent” mode. Notepad and OneNote are notable examples of applications that react poorly.
Crop and Lock was added to PowerToys version 0.73.0, which GitHub shows was released two days ago for both X64 and Arm64 architectures.
Crop and Lock, available for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 v2004 (19041) or newer, has two modes — a non-interactive Thumbnail crop that’s essentially a live feed of the area you select that updates with the page, and a “Reparent” mode that Microsoft writes is more interactive, but could…
Recent Posts
- LG Promo Codes and Coupons for June 2026
- 30% Off Canon Promo Codes | June 2026
- Steam Machine and Steam Frame are coming ‘this summer’
- Valve says it’s ready to launch the Steam Machine this summer
- Best Buy slashes up to $400 off Apple tech in a limited-time sale — get AirPods, MacBooks, iPads and Apple Watches from $99.99
Archives
- June 2026
- May 2026
- April 2026
- March 2026
- February 2026
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023