How to Be More Productive with Hot Corners in Windows 10

Hot corners are often an undervalued way to perform a variety of actions quickly on macOS and Linux-based operating systems.

For example, on my elementary OS setup I can move my mouse to the bottom-right corner of my screen to show all windows so that I can quickly switch between them. I have another hot corner setup at the top-right corner which gives me a view of all my active workspaces.

While this is a standard feature on the aforementioned OSes, the concept is foreign in Windows, as there is no built-in way to set hot corners although you can use keyboard shortcuts to trigger the same actions.

For those who prefer the hot corners approach, I will show you how to simulate this functionality on a Windows 10 machine using WinXCorners.

Installation

1 Download the zip file from the developer’s website and extract its contents to a new folder.

2. Open the folder and double-click the executable file highlighted in the screenshot below.

3. A security warning should show up, asking you to confirm if you want to run the software. Click “Run.”

4. A new icon should appear at the bottom of your taskbar. This is where you will configure your preferred hot corners.

Basic Usage

The features available at this point are not as robust as you would get on macOS or Linux. However, one can still set some useful hot corner actions as you’ll see.

• Click on the monitor icon in the taskbar to view the available options for each corner of your screen.
• Make sure the toggle switch for hot corners is set to enabled.
• Select your preferred action for each corner of your screen. The four options represent each corner: top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right.

For example, you can set the top-right corner to “All Windows.” This will give you a birds-eye view of all your open windows and virtual desktops whenever you move your mouse to that corner.

Once you are satisfied, you can test if it is working by moving your cursor to the edges. For me, everything worked just fine except the screensaver option which did not seem to trigger anything.

Other Options

If you want to disable the hot corners temporarily, you can do so by opening up the options and setting the toggle switch to disabled.

You can also make the app run automatically on startup by right-clicking its icon and selecting “Start with windows.”

Limitations

Keep in mind that WinXCorners will not work under the following circumstances:

• If you focus an app running with administrator privileges
• If you have a multi-monitor setup, it won’t work on secondary monitors

Wrap Up

Windows 10 does not support hot corners out of the box. but with the help of third-party apps like WinXCorners, you can easily bring that functionality to your machine.

I hope this article has helped you find some use cases for hot corners on your PC. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

Ayo Isaiah is a freelance writer from Lagos who loves everything technology with a particular interest in open-source software. Follow him on Twitter.

WinXCorners lets you use Mac-style Hot Corners to Windows 10

Hot Corners is a native feature in macOS using which Mac users can start screen saver, view desktop, open Launchpad, etc., by placing the mouse cursor to any of the four corners of desktop/laptop screen. This feature is pretty useful, but Windows 10 operating system doesn’t come with this feature natively. Still, it is possible to use Mac-style Hot Corners in Windows 10.

Thankfully, there exist a few third-party tools that can help us add and use Mac Style Hot Corners in Windows 10. One of those tools is ‘WinXCorners’ which we have covered in this post. This is an open-source and portable tool that lets you enable Hot Corners in Windows 10.

Using this WinXCorners tool, you can set any of the four corners of the Windows 10 screen to open Action Center, launch Task View mode (to preview all opened windows), hide background applications and show only foreground or active window, turn off monitor, launch Screen Saver, or turn off laptop screen or the monitor. You just have to configure this tool once and hover the mouse cursor to any of the corners of the screen. The action set by you will be triggered immediately.

What I find more useful is you can set a custom command for Hot Corners. For example, you can launch some browser, Notepad++, or some other application when moving the mouse cursor to a particular corner of the screen.

In the image above, you can see its configuration box where I have set different actions (including custom command) to all the corners of the screen.

Note: This tool is not supported for multiple screens/monitors. So, you should use it on a single screen device only.

Add Hot Corners in Windows 10

To use Hot Corners in Windows 10 using this tool, download its zip file, and extract it.

After extracting that zip, open the folder where you extracted the zip file, and execute WinXCorners.exe file.

Now the tool will start running in the system tray of Windows 10. Click that system tray icon and the Hot Corners box of this tool will open, just like you can see in the image below.

There are four drop-down menus for each corner (top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right) of the screen. Use a drop-down menu and you can assign any of the supported actions for that corner. For example, you can use Action Center for the top left corner. Just select an action of your choice. This way, set actions for all corners, and you’re done. Whenever you will place the mouse cursor to any of the corners, the associated action is triggered quickly.

Now, this tool might create trouble sometimes. For example, you might forget the tool is running and you accidentally move the mouse cursor to any of the corners, and the action is triggered. To overcome such an issue, you can use its Hot Corners box and turn on/off Hot Corners enabled button anytime you want.

Apart from the above configuration, you can also access its Advanced Options to set the time delay for each of the corners to trigger the action. Moreover, it is also helpful to set a custom command for Hot Corners.

For that, right-click on the system tray icon of WinXCorners tool, and select Advanced option.

In the Advanced Options box, you can set time delay (in ms) for all corners separately using the given options. In the same box, there is a Custom Command (Launcher) field. Here, you can paste the path of some program or application, and then tick mark Enable Custom Command option. This will help you show the custom command option in the drop-down menus of the Hot Corners box so that you launch that particular application just by placing your mouse cursor to the associated corner.

Press OK to save the changes.

That’s all. You can download this tool here. Using this tool was an interesting experience for me!

For your information, Tiny Hot Corners is another tool thatlets you add GNOME-like Hot Corners to Windows 10.

Hope this will be useful to you and many other users who want to add and use Mac-style Hot Corners to their Windows 10 PC.

Hot corners all windows

Notice: This version doesn’t support multiple monitors

WinXcorners allows you to assign events to trigger on your main monitor corners, it activates when your mouse cursor hovers them, i.e. when you move your mouse cursor to your screen edges.

These are the options that you can select:

And when you are going to play video games, it includes a toggle option that will disable it temporarily.

The application runs in the System Tray, by right clicking you can enable it to run when Windows starts (logon).

[UPDATE August 2016] WinXCorners 1.1.0.3 beta

This is new version which fixes some bugs and adds new features:

Fixed trigger while holding down any mouse button (left, middle or right button)

Changed text rendering method to fix blurry text on some screen resolutions

Fixed showing countdown while holding down mouse button

Added a workaround to let show windows, show desktop and show action center be triggered while using a program with administrative rights

Delayed hotcornes, you can set a delay time to trigger a hotcorner event

Added notification center option

Custom command for a hotcorner

Visible delay countdown

Trayicon icon updated, it turns grayish if you disable temporarily the tool

You can call this advanced options dialog from System Tray icon (right click –> Advanced)

WIP Support for light theme on Windows 10 May 2019 Update

Copyright (c) 2015 Victor Alberto Gil (vhanla)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the «Software»), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED «AS IS», WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

How to get macOS style hot corners on Windows 10

Feb 21, 2019
Comment

macOS has four hot corners that you can configure to open the launch pad, mission control, Finder, etc. Windows 10 only has one hot corner; the Show Desktop hot corner which, as the name implies, shows you your desktop. If you’d like to get macOS style hot corners on Windows 10, you can do so with a free app called HotCornersApp.

Hot corners on Windows 10

The app is as great as its name is unoriginal. Download, install, and run it, and you can configure all four hot corners.

Each hot corner has its own dropdown menu in the app’s interface. Open the dropdown and you will see five options; Lock Screen, Show Desktop, Task View, Keyboard shortcut, and run program. Select any of these options. You can assign the same action to multiple hot corners.

If you want to run an app, select the ‘Run Program’ option and in the new window that opens, select the app’s EXE. If you want to run a UWP app, select a shortcut to it.

If you want the hot corner to execute a keyboard shortcut, select the ‘Keyboard Shortcut’ option from the menu and enter the shortcut you want it to execute in the window that opens. You don’t have to set up an action for all four hot corners. You can leave any one of them empty. Click Save when you’re done and close the app. It will continue to run in the system tray.

Execute hot corners

To execute a hot corner, simply move the mouse cursor to a corner of your screen. Whatever action you’ve associated with the hot corner will be executed. You do not need to click to execute it.

The app works fairly well however, I tested it on a multi-monitor set-up and it did not execute the hot corner action that I had set up for the top right hot corner which is also where my primary display meets my secondary display. The bottom right hot corner worked fine but nothing I tried could get the top right hot corner to work.

If you ever want to disable a hot corner, open the app and open the dropdown for the hot corner you want to disable. Select the ‘No Selection’ option, and click save to remove the hot corner. The app doesn’t support a lot of OS level features however, it supports keyboard shortcuts so if you want to, for example, open Windows Search from a hot corner, use the keyboard shortcut option and enter Win+S.

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Делаем активные углы рабочего стола Windows 10

Седые старцы, которые ещё помнят и даже видели своими глазами Windows 3.1, поговаривают, что «горячие углы» на рабочем столе были ещё в её времена. Спорить не буду, просто не помню, но в Windows 8 подобная удобная функция присутствовала точно, хоть и в очень ограниченном виде. В других версиях операционной системы от неё почему-то отказались.

Сегодня кратенько и с картинками расскажу, как можно очень легко и просто сделать активные углы рабочего стола Windows 10 даже не одним, а целыми тремя абсолютно бесплатными способами. Вы сможете самостоятельно назначить нужное Вам быстрое действие при наведении курсора мышки в определённый угол экрана (запуск программы, отображение рабочего стола…) — это невероятно повысит Вашу скорость работы в Windows. Про удобство я вообще молчу.

Активные углы рабочего стола Windows 10

Из вступления Вы уже поняли для чего используются Hot Corners (горячие углы), поэтому перехожу к описанию трёх простых бесплатных программ, которые умеют создавать на рабочем столе Windows 10 эти самые специальные зоны (углы) при подведении курсора к которым активируется назначенное Вами действие. Пусть первой утилитой будет…

HotCornersApp

Скачиваем программу для компьютера под названием HotCornersApp по ссылке, что в конце статьи и устанавливаем её в операционную систему буквально всего парой кликов…

…и назначаем свои действия на разные углы рабочего стола (по умолчанию они отсутствуют)…

Для тех, кто не владеет английским языком даже на школьном уровне перевожу варианты:

• Не назначено
• Активировать экран блокировки
• Отобразить рабочий стол
• Показать все запущенные окна
• «Горячие клавиши»
• Запустить назначенную программу

Осталось сохранить внесённые изменения методом тыка по кнопочке «Save»…

…и всё — у Вас теперь есть активные углы на рабочем столе Windows. В процессе работы за компьютером кратковременно наводите (закидываете) курсор мышки в нужный угол и Ваше назначенное действие запускается.

Читайте также на сайте:

• Автозагрузка программы HotCornersApp
• Запуск в свёрнутом виде
• Сворачивание в трей при закрытии
• Отключение подобной встроенной функции в Windows 8

Есть возможность быстро отменить все внесённые изменения и отключить все активные углы рабочего стола Windows…

К сожалению, говорят, что в Windows 7 данная утилита работает неполноценно (может и врут, проверить нет возможности). В «десятке» все заявленные и описанные выше функции работают отлично (требуется установленный пакет NET Framework 4.5 и выше).

Hot Corners WX

Вторая бесплатная программа для создания активных углов на рабочем столе Windows называется Hot Corners WX и работает она исключительно в «десятке».

Набор возможностей, по сравнению с предыдущим конкурентом, очень «печален»…

Доступно всего четыре предустановленных действия при наведении курсора мышки в угол экрана…

1. Показать все запущенные окна
2. Показать пусковое меню
3. Отобразить рабочий стол
4. Панель уведомлений

Зато можно отрегулировать чувствительность угла в пункте «Sensivity» и вызывать окно программы не только двойным кликом по значку в трее, но и сочетанием клавиш «Win+F5».

Хоть в самом начале установки и выскакивает такое окно…

…но сама программа полностью на английском языке…

• Автозагрузка программы
• Отображение значка в трее
• Включить/выключить активные углы

WinXCorners

Бесплатная и портативная программа WinXCorners завершает наш сегодняшний хит-парад создателей активных углов для рабочего стола Windows 10 и… я про неё Вам уже рассказывал подробно на этом сайте. Повторять описание тут не вижу смысла.

В качестве бонуса дам Вам название ещё одной хорошей программы с подобным функционалом — BetterDesktopTool (погуглите название и будет Вам счастье). Она бесплатна для некоммерческого использования…

…англоязычна и гораздо сложнее в понимании, чем предыдущие описанные тут утилиты. Зато продвинутые пользователи найдут её очень интересной и полезной, уверен…

Скачать HotCornersApp и Hot Corners WX

Закинул оба инсталлятора в один архив и «залил» к себе на сервер для прямого моментального свободного скачивания…

Размер архива всего 687.4 кб. Вирусов нет.

Теперь Вы знаете, как сделать активные углы рабочего стола Windows 10. До новых полезных компьютерных программ и интересных приложений для Андроид.

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