Flow.Launcher Documentation

1. Project Overview & Quickstart (Flow-Launcher/Flow.Launcher) Copy Chapter

File: README.md Copy Chapter

[Official Channels](#-official-channels) • [Getting Started](#-getting-started) • [Features](#-features) • [Plugins](#-plugins) • [Hotkeys](#%EF%B8%8F-hotkeys) • [Sponsors](#sponsors) • [Questions/Suggestions](#-questionssuggestions) • [Development](#development) • [Docs](https://flowlauncher.com/docs)

📣 Official Channels Copy Chapter

• Website: https://flowlauncher.com
• GitHub Organization: https://github.com/Flow-Launcher
• Discord: https://discord.gg/AvgAQgh
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/FlowLauncher/

⚠️ Only trust official channels for downloads and announcements, and be careful of similar-looking domains.

For installation, use the official methods listed below.

🚗 Getting Started Copy Chapter

Installation Copy Section

Windows 10+ Installer or Portable Version

Winget

winget install "Flow Launcher"

Scoop

scoop install Flow-Launcher

Chocolatey

choco install Flow-Launcher

When installing for the first time Windows may raise an issue about security due to code not being signed, if you downloaded from this repo then you are good to continue the set up.

Or download the early access version.

🎁 Features Copy Chapter

Applications & Files Copy Section

• Search for apps, files or file contents.

• Supports Everything and Windows Index.

• Supports search using environment variable paths.

Web Searches & URLs Copy Section

Browser Bookmarks Copy Section

System Commands Copy Section

• Provides system related commands. shutdown, lock, settings, etc.
• System command list

Calculator Copy Section

• Do mathematical calculations and copy the result to clipboard.

Shell Command Copy Section

• Run batch and PowerShell commands as Administrator or a different user.
• Ctrl+Shift+Enter to Run as Administrator.

Explorer Copy Section

• Save file or folder locations for quick access.

Windows & Control Panel Settings Copy Section

• Search for Windows & Control Panel settings.

Dialog Jump Copy Section

• Search for a file/folder and quickly jump to its path in the Open/Save As dialog window.
• Use Alt+G to quickly jump the Open/Save As dialog window path to the path of the active file manager.

Drag & Drop Copy Section

• Drag a file/folder to File Explorer, or even Discord.
• Copy/move behavior can be changed via Ctrl or Shift, and the operation is displayed on the mouse cursor.

Priority Copy Section

• Prioritize the order of each plugin's results.

Preview Panel Copy Section

• Use F1 to show or hide previews
• Results can preview media files as large images, show an icon and description, or use markdown with code highlighting.
• Show previews by default via Settings (Always Preview).
• Use Ctrl++/- and Ctrl+[/] to adjust search window width and height quickly if the preview area is too narrow.

Customizations Copy Section

• Window size adjustment, animation, and sound

• Color Scheme (aka Dark Mode)

• There are various themes and you also can make your own.

Date & Time Display In Search Window Copy Section

• Display date and time in search window.

💬 Languages Copy Section

• Supports languages from Chinese to Italian and more.
• Supports Pinyin (拼音) search.
• Crowdin support for language translations.

Supported languages

Portable Copy Section

• Fully portable.
• Type flow user data to open your saved user settings folder. They are located at:
  • If using roaming: %APPDATA%\FlowLauncher
  • If using portable, by default: %localappdata%\FlowLauncher\app-<VersionOfYourFlowLauncher>\UserData
  • Type open log location to open your logs folder, they are saved along with your user settings folder.

🎮 Game Mode Copy Section

• Pause hotkey activation when you are playing games.
• When in search window use Ctrl+F12 to toggle on/off.
• Type Toggle Game Mode

📦 Plugins Copy Chapter

• Support wide range of plugins. Visit here for our plugin portfolio.
• Publish your own plugin to Flow! Create plugins in:

[SpotifyPremium](https://github.com/fow5040/Flow.Launcher.Plugin.SpotifyPremium) Copy Section

[Steam Search](https://github.com/Garulf/Steam-Search) Copy Section

[Clipboard+](https://github.com/Jack251970/Flow.Launcher.Plugin.ClipboardPlus) Copy Section

[Home Assistant Commander](https://github.com/Garulf/HA-Commander) Copy Section

[Colors](https://github.com/Flow-Launcher/Flow.Launcher.Plugin.Color) Copy Section

[GitHub](https://github.com/JohnTheGr8/Flow.Plugin.Github) Copy Section

[Window Walker](https://github.com/taooceros/Flow.Plugin.WindowWalker) Copy Section

......and more!

🛒 Plugin Store Copy Section

• You can view the full plugin list or quickly install a plugin via the Plugin Store menu inside Settings

• or type pm install/uninstall/update + the plugin name in the search window,

⌨️ Hotkeys Copy Chapter

System Command List Copy Chapter

💁‍♂️ Tips Copy Section

• More tips

Sponsors Copy Chapter

Mentions Copy Section

• Why I Chose to Support Flow-Launcher - Appwrite
• Softpedia Editor's Pick

❔ Questions/Suggestions Copy Chapter

Yes please, let us know in the Q&A section. Join our community on Discord!

Development Copy Chapter

Localization Copy Section

Our project localization is based on Crowdin. If you would like to change them, please go to https://crowdin.com/project/flow-launcher.

WPF UI Library Copy Section

Our UI library is using iNKORE.UI.WPF.Modern.

New Changes Copy Section

All changes to Flow are captured via pull requests. Some new changes may have been merged but are still pending release. This means that while a change may not exist in the current release, it may have been accepted and merged into the dev branch and is available as a pre-release download. It is therefore a good idea to search through the open and closed pull requests before you start to make changes to ensure the change you intend to make is not already done.

Each of the pull requests will be marked with a milestone indicating the planned release version for the change.

Contributing Copy Section

Contributions are very welcome, in addition to the main project (C#) there are also documentation (md), website (html/css) and others that can be contributed to. If you are unsure of a change you want to make, let us know in the Discussions, otherwise feel free to submit a pull request.

You will find the main goals of Flow placed under the Projects board, so feel free to contribute on that. If you would like to make small incremental changes, feel free to do so as well.

Get in touch if you would like to join the Flow-Launcher Team and help build this great tool.

Developing/Debugging Copy Section

• Flow Launcher's target framework is .Net 9

• Install Visual Studio 2022 (v17.12+)

• Install .Net 9 SDK

  • via Visual Studio installer
  • via winget winget install Microsoft.DotNet.SDK.9
  • Manually from here

File: Flow.Launcher.Core/Plugin/README.md Copy Chapter

There are two kinds of plugins:

1. System plugin
   Those plugins that action keyword is "*", those plugin doesn't need action keyword
2. User Plugin
   Those plugins that contains customized action keyword

File: Flow.Launcher.Core/README.md Copy Chapter

What does Flow.Launcher.Core do?

• Handle Query
• Define Flow.Launcher exceptions
• Manage Plugins (including system plugin and user plugin)
• Manage Themes
• Manage i18n
• Manage Update and version

File: Flow.Launcher.Plugin/README.md Copy Chapter

Reference this package to develop a plugin for Flow Launcher.

Useful links:

• General plugin development guide
• .Net plugin development guide
• Package API Reference

File: Plugins/Flow.Launcher.Plugin.WindowsSettings/README.md Copy Chapter

Flow.Launcher.Plugin.WindowsSettings

Ported from PowerToys WindowsSettings plugin

File: Plugins/Flow.Launcher.Plugin.ProcessKiller/Readme.md Copy Chapter

Process Killer Plugin

A Flow-Launcher plugin that allows you to kill running processes.

Based on Wox.Plugin.ProcessKiller, originally created by cxfksword and improved by theClueless.

2. Official Technical Reference & Guides (Flow-Launcher/flow-launcher.github.io) Copy Chapter

Flow Launcher website

This repository contains the source code for the Flow Launcher website. It also contains the extended plugin store.

What is Flow Launcher? Copy Chapter

Flow Launcher is a free, open-source productivity tool for Windows that helps you access your files and applications
quickly, run system commands, do mathematical calculations, and more. Learn
more on the website
or in the GitHub repository.

Adding plugin data Copy Chapter

Why add plugin data to the website? Copy Section

You can completely ignore the website, and your plugin will still be visible there and in the plugin store inside Flow
Launcher. However, adding more data to the website can help users learn more about your plugin, see images and videos of
it in action, and read blog posts about it. This can help users decide whether to install your plugin and can help you
communicate updates and new features to your users. If you don't want to add more data to the website, that's completely
fine, the website will still display the following information about your plugin:

• Icon
• Name
• Author
• Description
• Version
• Programming language
• Latest release date
• Source code link

Prerequisites Copy Section

• Your plugin must be approved and added to the
  Flow.Launcher.PluginsManifest repository.
• Use .png or .jpg for images. Videos should be YouTube links only.
• You need to fork this repository. After that, you will either:
  • Clone the fork to your computer and work with it locally using any text editor or IDE of your choice, such as
    Notepad++, Visual Studio Code, or JetBrains IDEs,
  • Or you can edit the files directly on GitHub. If you choose to edit the files directly on GitHub, you can skip the
    steps that involve cloning the repository and running the website locally.

Steps to add more information about your plugin Copy Section

1. Think of a "slug," a unique readable string based on the name of your plugin. This will be used in the URL. If your
   plugin is called "Cool Feature+," you might use cool-feature-plus as the slug. This will be used in the URL, e.g.,
   www.flowlauncher.com/plugins/cool-feature-plus or
   www.flowlauncher.com/plugins/cool-feature-plus/blog/exciting-new-update. The slug will also be used as the name of
   the directory your plugin's files are stored in in this repository.

[!NOTE]
We might have pre-created the folder and the file for you in order to add tags for your plugin. If you'd like to
change it, feel free to rename the folder, the file, and the slug field in the file.

2. Create a new file in the src/data/plugins/YOUR_SLUG/ directory, call the file plugin.md and fill it with the
   following information:

   markdown Copy

   ---
   # This should match the ID in the plugin manifest
   id: 7fbfd61f-0b9c-480d-93e8-59e3451bbbdf # Replace this with the ID of your plugin
   
   # Optional array of videos to display on your plugin's page. Only YouTube links are
   # supported. Videos are always displayed before images.
   videos:
   - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
   - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANOTHER_VIDEO_ID
   
   # Optional array of images to display on your plugin's page. Images should be stored near 
   # YOUR_SLUG.md, for example, in src/data/plugins/YOUR_SLUG/images/
   images:
   # The path to the images is relative. If it's in the same directory as the .md file,
   # you don't need to specify a path, just the file name. If it's in a subdirectory,
   # you need to specify the path.
   - image1.png
   - images/image2.png
   
   # Optional array of tags to display on your plugin's page. These should be relevant to your
   # plugin. Allowed values are: AI, Automation, Browser Tools, Calculators & Converters, Date & Time,
   # Development Tools, Dictionaries, Documentation, Examples, File Management, Gaming, Multimedia, Networking,
   # Notes, Productivity, Programming, Search, System, Text Tools, Translation, Social Media, Utilities
   tags:
   - Automation
   - Programming
   ---

3. Add a new line after this block. Now you can write a description of your plugin using Markdown. You can also display
   images here using Markdown syntax. For example:

   markdown Copy

   This plugin adds a variety of very cool features. Let's take a look at them!
   
   
   
   ## Feature 1
   
   This feature is super cool. It does cool things. Here's a screenshot:
   
   
   
   ## Feature 2
   
   This feature is even cooler. It does even cooler things. Here's another screenshot:

4. If you'd like to write more about the plugin, you can utilize the blogging functionality. Create a new file in the
   src/data/plugins/YOUR_SLUG/blog/ directory, call the file YYYY-MM-DD_blog-post-slug.md (the file must have its
   name in format YYYY-MM-DD_blog-post-slug.md) and fill it with the following information:

   markdown Copy

   ---
   # This should be a unique readable string. It will be used in the URL,
   # e.g., `/plugins/my-cool-plugin/blog/my-blog-post`
   slug: my-blog-post
   
   # The title of your blog post
   title: Your Blog Post Title
   
   # A short summary of your blog post
   summary: A short summary of your blog post
   
   # The date of your blog post in ISO 8601 format. A few examples:
   # 2024-12-30T12:55:34Z
   # 2024-12-30T12:55:34+06:00
   date: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ssZ # Replace this with the date of your blog post
   
   # The author of your blog post
   author: John Doe
   ---
   # Your blog post content goes here
   
   This is a blog post about my plugin. It's very cool.

5. Optional. If you'd like to test your changes before making a pull request, you can run the website locally. To do
   this, you'll need to have Node.js v22 or newer installed. Once you have Node.js installed, you can run the following
   commands in the root directory of this repository:

   bash Copy

   npm install
   npm run dev

   This will start a local development server that you can access at http://localhost:4321.

   Alternatively, if you don't want to run it locally but still want to see how your changes will look, you can use the
   GitHub Actions workflow to build the website and preview it. To do this, go to your fork's Actions tab on GitHub and
   press "I understand my workflows, go ahead and enable them", then commit your changes to the master branch and push
   it. You should see your action running on GitHub, and if you click on it, you should see two steps: build and
   deploy. Under deploy, there will be a link to the preview of your changes.

6. Once you're happy with your changes, commit them and open a pull request. A maintainer will review your changes and
   merge them if everything looks good. Your changes should be live on the website shortly after they are merged.

Licensing Notice Copy Chapter

This project is licensed under the MIT License. However, it includes Font Awesome Free icons, which are subject to their
own license.

• Font Awesome Free License: https://fontawesome.com/license/free

The Font Awesome Free icons used in this project are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license. See the link above for details.