With Halloween coming up, I wanted something cozier on my desktop than a static wallpaper, so I built Fall Desktop.

Leaves drift down across every monitor, tumble in gusty wind, and settle into piles along the top of the taskbar. Pumpkins and scarecrows stand in the piles, and cobwebs hang in the screen corners. Halloween mode is on by default, with candle-lit jack-o'-lanterns, a spider on each web, and the occasional bat. Switch it off for a plain autumn look.

**Things you can play with:**

- Sweep the mouse through a pile to rake it and send the leaves flying

- Push through a cobweb and it stretches and springs back. Swipe fast and threads snap, then the spider mends them

- Bump a scarecrow and it rocks on its post and its hat wobbles

- Leaves get caught in webs and land on the pumpkins and hats

**It stays out of the way:**

- Clicks pass straight through to whatever is underneath

- Hides during fullscreen games and videos, on the lock screen, and while the display is off, and doesn't make Windows think a fullscreen app is running

- Optional "leaves behind windows" mode keeps everything on the desktop only

- About 0.3 ms of CPU per frame. Caps at 60 fps on battery and 30 fps on battery saver or over RDP

- Each monitor renders at its own resolution, DPI and refresh rate, so a 60 Hz screen next to a 144 Hz one stays smooth, and the piles continue across side-by-side monitors

**Customizable:** 20 leaf designs (sugar maple, oak, ginkgo, sweetgum, whirling maple keys, acorns, even pixel-art leaves), color schemes (Autumn, Golden, Crimson or any custom color), sliders for amount, speed, size, wind, pile depth, and how many pumpkins and scarecrows. The settings window has a live preview you can mess with.

**Tech:** native C++ with Direct2D and DirectComposition. Single small .exe that lives in the tray. Installer is per-user with no admin rights, and there's a portable zip too. Windows 10 1809+ or Windows 11, x64.

Heads up: the installer isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn on first run (*More info → Run anyway*). The source is all there if you'd rather build it yourself.

GitHub: Fall Desktop - Github

Official Signed: Fall Desktop - Microsoft Store

Feedback and bug reports are welcome, especially from multi-monitor and HDR setups.

Hey everyone! Yesterday I shared Action Wheel, an image utility for Windows inspired by macOS.

It’s no longer just an image tool, it’s now a full offline pdf & image action wheel.

v2.0.0 is live!

No uploading your PDFs to online converters. No waiting for uploads. No subscriptions. Everything happens 100% offline on your device at native speed.

Whenever you select or drag a PDF (or image) and tap Tab, a dark-glass radial wheel opens right under your cursor:

What you can do instantly:

• Edit PDF: Highlight text, redact sensitive info with black bars, whiteout, or add custom text with live color/font pickers and touchpad pinch-to-zoom.
• Sign Documents: Draw your signature or type your name in cursive, auto-crop the blank margins, and drag/resize the stamp anywhere on the page.
• Split & Extract: Visual page grid with a live range selector (From Page X to Y), quick presets, and Shift-click multi-selection.
• Merge PDFs: Drag multiple PDFs together to reorder with fluid physics and merge into one.
• Protect / Unlock: AES-256 encryption & decryption. The wheel is dynamic—it automatically shows Unlock if the file is encrypted, and Protect if it's not.
• PDF to Images: Batch export pages to crisp PNGs (auto-creates organized subfolders).
• Still has all image tools: Convert (WebP/PNG/JPG/AVIF), crop, compress, and images-to-PDF.

It stays completely dormant in the background until you hit Tab. Lightweight, zero clutter, instant.

GitHub & Downloads: https://github.com/RohanSingh7761/action-wheel
(Both installer and portable standalone .exe are on the Releases page)

It's completely free and open-source. Contributions, feature requests, and bug reports are warmly welcome! Feel free to fork the repo, open an issue, or submit a PR.

Quick note: Since this is a free open-source project without an enterprise EV certificate, Windows SmartScreen will show a "More info → Run anyway" prompt on first launch.

Let me know what you think :)

DeskTick is a tiny clock widget for Windows, written in plain Win32 C++ with Direct2D. The exe is about 1 MB and it uses ~ 5 MB of RAM.

All 16 faces are drawn procedurally, so there are no image assets. With the second hand off, it sleeps between minutes: it wakes once a minute, draws a frame and goes back to sleep, so CPU sits at 0%.

There can be plenty of feature-packed clock widgets. The main advantage of DeskTick is its featherlight presence.

Free and open source: https://github.com/riyasy/DeskTick

Hi, I’m the developer of Hindsight, a free, open-source activity tracker for Windows and macOS.

I know there are plenty of time trackers already. I just couldn’t find one that combined cross-platform support, sync, and detailed charts in a free, lightweight app I actually liked looking at. Maybe I was being too picky, so I decided to make my own.

Here are the main features:

• Automatic activity tracking. Hindsight records active apps and window titles while it’s running, so you don’t have to start and stop a timer for each task.
• Daily, weekly and monthly views. See your activity hour by hour, click a time period to narrow the breakdown, or open an app to inspect its recorded window titles. Monthly charts also show category breakdowns and changes from the previous month.
• A full-year activity heatmap. Look for patterns across the year, then drag across a range of days to take a closer look.
• Custom categories. Decide how your apps and websites are grouped, so the charts reflect how you use your computer.
• Searchable screen memory. Screenshots and OCR are off by default. If you enable them, you can search the recognized text and jump back to the screenshot where it appeared.
• AI summaries. Turn your recorded activity into a daily report organized by time period. You can run a local model or connect a cloud API; third-party API fees may apply.
• Chat with your activity history. Ask questions like “How much time did I spend on this project this week?” Answers include links back to your records so you can check them.
• Sync across computers. Use Google Drive or a WebDAV service to bring together records from your Windows and Mac devices. Sync is optional, and you can view devices separately or together.
• Available in six interface languages. English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.

Plugin support is now available too. Other developers can build their own plugins for Hindsight, and I’d love to see what people make with it.

If this sounds useful, you’re very welcome to give it a try. Feedback, feature requests and bug reports are welcome in the comments or through GitHub issues. And if you find it helpful, a GitHub star would mean a lot.

Official website · Download Hindsight

Hi r/WindowsApps — I’m the developer. I wanted a movie/TV app that actually feels like it belongs on Windows 11, so I built one with WinUI 3 and .NET 10.

Design

• Mica backdrop, custom title bar with search suggestions (posters and people right in the dropdown)
• Microsoft Store-style home: hero carousel, rows for trending movies, shows, anime and “Continue watching”
• Full-width backdrop on title pages, plus cast, trailers, seasons and episodes
• Light/dark theme, follows your Windows language and region

Player

• Built-in VLC-based player in its own window: picture-in-picture, keyboard shortcuts, auto-hide controls and cursor
• Resumes where you stopped and auto-plays the next episode
• Sleep timer that fades out the audio and lets your PC sleep
• Night-mode audio that evens out explosions vs. dialogue
• Auto-removes black bars burned into the video
• “Smoothness” mode: real-time frame interpolation, 24 → 48 fps

Also

• Catalog from TMDB in ~80 languages; UI in EN/DE/FR/ES/UK/RU
• Plays torrent streams and downloaded files, works offline for favorites and downloads
• Free, no account, no ads

Download: GitHub

Hi everyone,

I’m a dev from Japan. I built this tool out of pure desperation.

My boss asked me to visualize 300+ web pages in a PowerPoint report for a QA audit. I started doing it manually, but just opening the URLs took forever. After 50 screenshots, I lost my mind. I realized: This isn't work for humans.

So I built "Open URLs App" to automate the whole process:

• Pipeline Automation: Run the entire flow with brackets like [ Capture > Resize > Images ] in a single click
• Bulk open URLs
• Auto capture high-quality screenshots
• Auto insert into PowerPoint slides

It runs locally for security (essential for my corporate work).

I’d love some honest feedback on the workflow. Does anyone else deal with this kind of repetitive task?

If anyone is in the same boat, here is the tool I made:

Website & Demo:
https://app.qlp.jp/open_urls/en/index.html

Insert 100 Images in 10s:
https://youtu.be/AhAn7bk8P34

One thing that gets annoying when using foreign-language software or playing games in another language is having to switch back and forth between the application and a translator.

Surprint is a Windows screen translator that tries to make this easier by displaying translations directly over the text on your screen.

Instead of manually copying text into a translation website, you can use a keyboard shortcut to translate the monitor under your cursor, the active window, or a region you select.

The main features:

• Offline screen translation: Download the required language models once, then translate without an internet connection.
• Game and app translation: Uses application-provided text when available, with OCR for content such as images and games.
• Translation overlay: Display translations over the original text or in a movable, resizable subtitle bar.
• Live translation mode: Monitor a window and attempt to restore translations when its contents stop moving.
• Glossary: Preserve names, brands, and game terminology.
• Per-app settings: Configure different languages and display preferences for different applications.
• Keyboard shortcuts: Trigger translations without leaving the application.

Privacy was also an important consideration. In the current offline workflow, screen pixels and recognized text aren't sent to a cloud translation service.

A few limitations to be aware of:

Surprint is still a work in progress, so I don't want to oversell it. OCR can miss small, faint, or stylized text, and scrolling or fast-moving game content can cause delays. The offline translation model can also lose nuance, especially with longer sentences.

Some protected screens aren't supported, and exclusive-fullscreen games need to run in borderless windowed mode.

Cloud translation services for potentially better results are planned for a future update, but they're not available yet.

Surprint supports 64-bit Windows 10 version 2004 or later.

If you regularly translate websites, use software in another language, or play games without your preferred language available, you can check it out here:

Demo Link : https://youtu.be/Y_G_brIZrWU?si=1-fbEQtQ3_JsLTL9

App link in comment section!

I'd especially appreciate feedback about OCR accuracy, language support, and compatibility with different games and applications. I'm continuing to improve it.

Hi r/windowsapps, I'm Candace, the solo developer behind Budget Blueprint. Your mod kindly said it was OK to share.

The most common reason I hear people give up on budget apps: hours typing in every bill before you see anything useful, and you quit before it's done.

So in this version (3.6.7) the app sets itself up with you, a few minutes a day:

- Today's Big Win: name, paycheck, checking balance, and one bill. About 5 minutes.

- Snap a photo of a bill or receipt and it fills in for you, or just say it ("spent $40 on groceries at Safeway, cash").

- Two friendly guides (April and Oliver, named after my beagles) show you where to tap and can read each step out loud.

- Your budget stays on your PC. No bank login, nothing stored on our servers.

Free 30-day trial of every feature on the Microsoft Store:

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NMN84PW6MP1

I'd really value honest feedback, good or bad. If you'd like to help test over the next 3 weeks, email [testers@cmwdigitalmedia.com](mailto:testers@cmwdigitalmedia.com) after you install. Testers who complete the check-ins get a free Lifetime key.

I'm the developer. There have been a few desktop organizers here lately, so I'll keep it to what SpringDesk does that I haven't seen elsewhere:

- New files file themselves. Save or download a PDF to the desktop and it lands in the PDF tab; docs, sheets, slides and pictures get their own tabs too, everything else waits in an Inbox. No rules to set up.

- Press Space to preview pictures, video, text and PDFs right from the desktop, like Quick Look on a Mac.

- Click the desktop and type to search every box.

- Clear glass that follows your wallpaper (live wallpapers too), tabs, roll-up, folder boxes, and a separate layout per display setup so Remote Desktop doesn't scramble it.

- Files never move; quit it and the desktop is exactly as Windows had it.

Windows 11 only. It's in the Microsoft Store (signed, auto-updates), 7-day free trial, then a one-time purchase, launch price until January 1: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NRL4M710KQB?cid=reddit-windowsapps

Happy to answer anything, and bug reports go straight to me.

TheCore is a free, standalone desktop utility for Windows 10 and 11 designed for hardware monitoring and system maintenance without telemetry, ads, or background trackers.

Key features:

Any feedback and feature suggestions are welcome.

Hey r/windowsapps!

Windows' built-in voice typing (Win+H) has always had major limitations — it relies on the cloud for most languages, cuts off after short pauses, and lacks formatting. On the flip side, most third-party AI dictation tools want a monthly subscription, send your voice to external servers, or hog your GPU.

So I spent the last 10 months building VibeVox as a native Windows solution, and v1.0 just went live on the Microsoft Store.

How it works:

You just double-tap Ctrl, speak, and text is typed directly into whatever app you're in (Slack, browsers, Notepad, code editors).

What makes it feel native to Windows:

- 100% Local & On-Premises: Runs entirely on your CPU via a fast local engine. No GPU required, your voice never leaves your PC, and core dictation is free forever.

- Deep Windows Polish: We spent months fixing the annoying desktop edge-cases:

* Injected text does NOT clutter your Win+V clipboard history or sync across cloud clipboards.

* Copied images and files on your clipboard survive dictation intact.

* Handles the notorious 3-second Windows 11 microphone cold-start so your first words aren't cut off.

* Proper multi-monitor DPI scaling for the floating recording pill and safe handling when dictating into elevated Admin windows.

- 25+ Languages Offline + Norwegian pack (Bokmål/Nynorsk) available in Settings.

- Hands-Free "Lip-Reading" Mode: An optional webcam trigger that starts/stops recording by detecting lip movement (fully supports NVDA and Windows Narrator screen readers).

- Optional AI Rewrite & Translation: Clean up filler words or translate on the fly using your own API key (OpenAI, Claude, Groq, Gemini, OpenRouter) or our EU-hosted option.

Microsoft Store link: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nqj55m3sswr

Website (with a live browser demo and a portable .zip if you prefer it outside the Store): https://vibevox.io/

We also recently joined the NVIDIA Inception program. Would love to hear how it runs on your Windows setup or if you spot any UI/UX quirks!

Wallsmith, a free Windows app I made for upgrading wallpapers. Output: 4K, 120fps, seamless loop.

What Wallsmith does:

• AI upscaling: turns blurry 480p/720p into sharp 1080p, 1440p, 4K or ultrawide 5K (Real-ESRGAN)
• Smooth 60–144fps: AI-generated in-between frames (RIFE) to match your monitor
• Seamless loops: blends the end into the start so the wallpaper never visibly jumps
• Fits your screen: crop to your monitor’s shape, or fill the edges with a soft blur
• Colour looks: Cinematic, Pastel, Night, plus a full colour grade with live preview
• Wallpaper Engine library: open your existing wallpapers, upgrade them and put them straight back (the original is backed up)
• Runs on your own GPU (NVIDIA or AMD), and your videos never leave your PC

The free version covers up to 1080p. Pro is a one-time $5 for 4K/5K, high fps, loops and no ads.

👉 https://wallsmith.pages.dev

Hi everyone,

I'm Lawrence, the developer of WellTechFinds.

I built it for people managing product photos across Shopify, eBay, Etsy, social media or a combination of these.

In my video, I take 14 photos and prepare 70 images for five different destinations in one run. Each set gets its own folder, with the images resized, converted and compressed using the built-in presets. The originals aren't touched.

There are already plenty of good image tools out there, like PowerToys, IrfanView, XnConvert, TinyPNG and Canva. Depending on what you need, one of those might do the job.

I wanted to keep WellTechFinds simple for people who don't need heaps of advanced editing features. Just choose your destinations, run the batch and get your images organised into separate folders.

It runs locally on Windows 10/11, supports JPEG, PNG and WebP, and has 15 built-in presets.

It's normally A$19 for a lifetime licence, but I'm giving away 25 free lifetime licences if anyone wants to give it a go.

https://welltechfinds.com/

I'd be interested to know if this would save you time, or what other image jobs you'd find useful, like background removal, automatic lighting adjustments or something else.

Good or bad feedback is welcome.

Thanks,
Lawrence

https://reddit.com/link/1xe5qts/video/cga2oqel0exh1/player

Chrome’s floating video always seems to cover what you need. DuckEggs moves it smoothly, learns preferred positions for each app, and stops when you hover over the video controls.

Includes learning heatmaps and system tray support. Everything runs locally—no account, telemetry, or saved screenshots.

Free · MIT license · Portable ZIP ~1.4 MB · Windows 10/11 x64 · Chrome

It’s an early, unsigned alpha. Feedback on movement and positioning would be especially useful!

Download & source

Hey . I'm the maker, so this is my own project.

The problem: when an app misbehaves, you can't see the conversation between it and the server. Browser dev tools stop at the browser, logs show what the code thinks happened, and packet captures are unreadable unless you do this for a living.

So I built NovaWire: a Windows app that sits between any program and the internet, shows each request and reply in plain readable form, and lets you change the reply while the app is running.

\- HTTPS readable after one-click setup; JSON as a tree, not a wall of text.

\- Every request labelled with the program that sent it (node.exe, brave.exe, a Windows service).

\- Fake a reply, add a delay, or block a call — no code changes, no restart.

\- Replay requests, copy them out as curl, save a session to one file, or capture a phone on the same Wi-Fi.

Native Rust engine, 9.7 MB installer, no account, no telemetry. Free for personal use. Windows 10/11 64-bit only for now.

[https://novawire.dev\](https://novawire.dev)

Feedback Request: How intuitive is the user experience?

For Fiddler/Charles users: What key capabilities would make you consider switching over?

thanks.

Hi r/windowsapps, I’m the developer of Vox Reader, a Windows app that reads your own books and documents aloud using English voices on your PC. Here’s a one-minute overview.

Free includes TXT/EPUB reading, three English voices, and three listening hours every week, plus sentence highlighting, bookmarks, saved positions and local backup.

The optional Pro upgrade adds unlimited listening, all 11 voices, PDF and Word (DOCX) import, and custom pronunciations. It’s US$18.99 once, with no subscription; local Store prices may vary.

PDFs need a text layer, and complex layouts can affect reading order. Speech runs on your CPU, so loading and playback performance depend on your PC. Your books stay local; reading aloud works offline.

Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9PCVQB5H684W

Built and supported by Tendercraft. Feedback on the reading experience and document import is welcome!

I made Bytescape, a free and open-source (MIT) disk space analyzer. On Windows it is a portable .exe, no install needed.

• Treemap and simple views of any folder or drive, with sizes that update live while it scans
• Cleanup suggestions that only pre-select things that rebuild themselves (old node_modules, git-ignored build output, tool caches); duplicates (checked byte for byte), old archives and logs are listed for review
• Move to Trash (Recycle Bin) with a 6 second undo, and the treemap and totals update right away
• Runs locally, no accounts, no telemetry

The build is not signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn: More info, then Run anyway. Download (also macOS and Linux): https://github.com/arshtepe/bytescape/releases/latest

Hi all. I’ve just brought NostalgiApp, my game launcher, from macOS to Windows. It gathers every game you own into one fast library: retro collections, console ROMs and your PC store games.

What it does

• One library for everything:
  • your Steam, GOG, Epic, Amazon and Ubisoft games, installed or not;
  • ROMs for over 70 consoles and computers, played through RetroArch or standalone emulators (Dolphin, PCSX2, DuckStation, PPSSPP, Cemu, RPCS3 and more);
  • the eXo collections: thousands of DOS and Windows 3.x/9x games, ready to play.
• Quick with big libraries: 30,000+ games open in about a second, and search is instant.
• Nice to browse: grid, list, coverflow, shelf and timeline views, playlists, smart collections, a platform tree, box art in 3D, manuals and soundtracks.
• TV mode for the sofa, with a controller.
• Streaming to a TV, phone or tablet through Sunshine and Moonlight.

It’s a proper Windows app

• Small and native: built with Rust and the WebView2 that comes with Windows. It’s not a 300 MB Electron bundle.
• Installs your way: just for you (no admin rights) or for all users, or as a portable copy you can run from a USB stick.
• Fits into Windows: updates install from inside the app, it can sit in the system tray, recent games appear in the taskbar jump list, and Snap Layouts work.
• Your data is safe: back up and restore your favourites, ratings, playlists and play history. Uninstalling a game keeps its saves.

Price: free to use. An optional licence adds extra services: fetching box art and details for your ROMs, and syncing your library and saves between PCs and Macs.

It’s on macOS too, and a Linux / Steam Deck version is coming.

https://www.nostalgi.app/windows/

Feedback welcome. I’m in the comments.

I know, these already exist. But I wanted something basic, fast, and local for myself. Let me know what you think.

Yes, it's free!

https://github.com/flyingsotong/nemo

Hi, I'm the solo developer of LocalGateKeys. The video above shows it in action.

I wanted a password manager that didn't need an account or a subscription, and didn't keep my vault on someone else's server. So I built one.

What it does

• Your vault is an encrypted file on your PC. There's no account to create and no server holding your passwords.
• You can unlock it with Windows Hello (face or fingerprint) or your master password.
• The Edge extension fills logins in the browser and offers to save new ones. It's a separate free download (link below).
• It also fills sign-ins in desktop apps, not just websites (that's the game launcher part of the video).
• It supports passkeys.
• You get a recovery phrase, local backups and an offline mode.
• It imports from other password managers.
• iPhone and Android apps are coming soon.

How sync will work with the phone apps

There's still no LocalGateKeys server or account. Sync is end-to-end encrypted: your items are encrypted on your device with a key that only your own devices hold, and only decrypted on another of your devices. Your phone syncs straight with your PC, in one of two ways:

• Wi-Fi: in the PC app you open Sync and show a one-time QR code, then scan it with the phone. After that, the phone syncs whenever you open the app while it's on the same home network and your PC's vault is unlocked. Nothing leaves your network.
• Cloud folder: pick a folder you already sync (OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud Drive and so on) and set a sync password. Each device leaves encrypted files there, so the phone can catch up even when the PC is off. The cloud provider only ever sees encrypted files.

You can use one method or both. Logins, notes and deletions sync both ways, so something you save on your phone shows up on your PC too. Sync is part of Pro, and a Pro licence on your PC also unlocks the phone app when it syncs.

Pricing

• Free: everything above, for up to 4 items.
• Pro: US$4.99, one-time. That gets you unlimited items, sync between your own PCs (over Wi-Fi or through a cloud folder you choose), two-factor codes and attachments. Updates are included for life, with no subscription.
• If you go over the limit, nothing is locked or deleted. You just can't add more.

A few answers ahead of time:

• Why local-only? If there's no server, there's no server to breach. Your vault is a file you control and can back up however you like.
• What if I lose my PC? Keep a backup and your recovery phrase. With Pro you can also sync to a second PC.
• Browser filling needs the Edge extension. It's a separate free download from Edge Add-ons: https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/oclkjglnfefdmhddgicmbadaoehakbjj. Install the app first, then the extension. Filling in desktop apps works without it.
• iPhone / Android? Both apps are coming soon. They'll sync with the PC app directly, either over your home Wi-Fi (scan a QR code once) or through a cloud folder you choose. Sync is end-to-end encrypted either way. Either way there's no LocalGateKeys account.
• Why $4.99 once and not a subscription? There's no server for me to keep running for you, so a monthly fee wouldn't make sense.

Get it

• Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9PNWCNLQ6597
• Edge extension (needed for filling in the browser): https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/oclkjglnfefdmhddgicmbadaoehakbjj
• Website: https://localgatekeys.app

It's a new app and I'm one person, so I'd really like honest feedback: what's missing, what's confusing, and what would stop you switching from what you use now. I'll be in the comments.