WindowAnchor is a modern, Fluent-designed window management utility for Windows 11. It allows you to capture your entire workspace — including window positions, sizes, and even open files — and restore them with a single click or automatically when your monitor configuration changes.
- Workspace Snapshots: Save your complete desktop layout, including multi-head setups.
- Deep File Detection:
- Tier 1: Recovers open files via window title parsing.
- Tier 2: Uses Windows Jump-List integration to accurately identify and relaunch specific documents in supported apps (Office, VS Code, etc.).
- Selective Restore: Choose exactly which monitors to restore via a picker dialog.
- Save Progress Transparency: A dedicated progress window tracks the discovery of file paths and jump-lists during the save process.
- Zero Dependencies: Available as a high-performance, single-file standalone executable.
- Fluent UI: Fully integrated with the Windows 11 design language and system tray.
WindowAnchor operates silently in your system tray, watching your display configuration. Using Monitor Fingerprinting, it identifies your current setup (e.g., "Home Office" vs. "Travel") and restores your preferred layout instantly.
- Download: Get the latest
WindowAnchor-v1.1.0.exefrom the Releases page. - Save: Right-click the tray icon and select "Save Workspace...".
- Restore: Simply dock your laptop; WindowAnchor handles the rest.
-
Monitor fingerprint — WindowAnchor computes a stable SHA-256 hash of your connected monitors. This is used to automatically match workspaces when you reconnect monitors.
-
Window snapshot — Enumerates visible windows, recording position, DPI, and process info. File detection parses window titles and queries Windows jump-lists to relaunch files.
-
Restore phases — Closed apps are re-launched with saved file arguments, then the coordinator waits for windows to spawn before applying final positions and states.
For a deep dive into how WindowAnchor handles monitor fingerprints, DPI-aware restoration, and Tier 1/2 file detection, check out:
- Architecture Overview — A technical breakdown of the services and data flow.
Contributions are what make the open-source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Please check the Contributing Guidelines before submitting a Pull Request.
Prerequisites: .NET 8.0 SDK.
Build Standalone:
dotnet publish src/WindowAnchor/WindowAnchor.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:PublishReadyToRun=true- Selective Window Save: A checkbox list to choose exactly which windows get saved (exclude private/temporary windows).
- Default Workspace: Configure a default workspace to load on startup or monitor reconnect.
- Keyboard Shortcuts: Global hotkeys for quick save, restore, and workspace switching.
- Browser Session Restore: Better integration with Chrome/Edge to restore previous sessions.
- Monitor Renaming: Personalize "Generic PnP" monitors with custom names like "Left Monitor".
- Switch Workspace: Instantly switch between contexts by closing current apps and opening a different workspace.
- Smart VS Code Tracking: Deep detection of
.code-workspacefiles for perfect dev-environment restoration.
- Workspace Scheduler: Automatically switch workspaces based on time of day or calendar events.
- Per-App Launch Rules: Define global rules for apps (e.g., "Always launch Slack on Monitor 2").
- Workspace Templates: Pre-made community-driven templates for developers, creators, and students.
- Browser Extension: Deep tab-level restoration via dedicated Chrome/Edge/Firefox extensions.
- Cloud Sync: Sync your workspace configurations across multiple devices.
This project is licensed under the MIT License.