Some of the best software for your PC costs nothing at all. The trick is knowing which free tools are genuinely worth your time, and grabbing them from the right place. This roundup gathers ten of the best free Windows software picks for June 2026. Each one is a category leader, actively maintained, and listed with its real official download link and latest version. These are the tools serious Windows users keep installed on every machine. If you want even more, we also rounded up eight free Windows cleanup and audio tools in a separate guide, with no overlap with this list.
| The Short Version Ten free, must-have Windows tools: PowerToys (power-user utilities), Everything (instant file search), ShareX (screenshots and recording), 7-Zip (file compression), Notepad++ (text and code editing), VLC (media player), qBittorrent (torrents), Bitwarden (password manager), HWiNFO (hardware monitoring), and Obsidian (notes). All free, all current as of June 2026. One golden rule: only download from the official links below. |
Quick Comparison of All 10 Free Windows Tools
Here is the full lineup at a glance before we dig into each one. You can see what each does best and the category it wins.
| Tool | Best For | Type |
| PowerToys | Power-user Windows tweaks | Free, open source |
| Everything | Instant file search | Freeware |
| ShareX | Screenshots and recording | Free, open source |
| 7-Zip | File compression | Free, open source |
| Notepad++ | Text and code editing | Free, open source |
| VLC | Playing any media file | Free, open source |
| qBittorrent | Torrent downloads | Free, open source |
| Bitwarden | Password management | Free, open source |
| HWiNFO | Hardware monitoring | Freeware |
| Obsidian | Notes and knowledge base | Free to use |
| How We Picked Every tool here is genuinely free, actively updated in 2026, and the leader in its category. We deliberately avoided repeating anything from our earlier free-tools roundup, so this is ten fresh picks covering different jobs your PC needs done. |
PowerToys: Supercharge Windows With Power-User Tools
| 1 | Microsoft PowerToys | v0.100.0 | Free |
PowerToys is Microsoft’s own free suite of utilities that add the features Windows forgot. It bundles around two dozen tools in one app. You install once and unlock a pile of genuinely useful extras.
Standout features: FancyZones for snapping windows into custom layouts, a keyboard launcher (PowerToys Run and Command Palette), Advanced Paste, bulk file renaming with PowerRename, and on-screen text grabbing with Text Extractor.
Best for: anyone who wants window tiling, a fast app launcher, and dozens of quality-of-life tweaks Microsoft never built in.
Download: Download PowerToys from GitHub (official GitHub, or winget)
| Why It Matters PowerToys is made by Microsoft and open source, so it is safe, free, and constantly improving. The June 2026 v0.100.0 release even shrank the installer by 15% and added a Command Palette extension gallery. If you install one tool from this list, make it this one. |
Everything: Find Any File the Instant You Type
| 2 | Everything (voidtools) | 1.4.1.1032 | Free |
Everything is the fastest file search on Windows, full stop. It indexes your entire drive in about a second. Then it finds any file or folder the moment you start typing the name. Windows Search cannot come close.
Standout features: Near-instant results as you type, tiny memory footprint, regex and advanced filters, bookmarks, and an optional built-in HTTP and FTP server for remote access.
Best for: anyone tired of slow Windows Search, especially developers, admins, and anyone with a crowded hard drive.
Download: Download Everything from voidtools (official site)
| Heads Up The stable version to grab is 1.4.1.1032. There is a newer 1.5 line with dark mode and content search, but it is still in beta as of June 2026, so stick with the stable build unless you like testing. |
ShareX: The Most Powerful Free Screenshot Tool
| 3 | ShareX | 20.2.0 | Free |
ShareX is a free, open-source screenshot and screen-recording powerhouse. It goes far beyond the built-in Snipping Tool, with capture options, a strong editor, and automated actions after every capture.
Standout features: Region, window, and scrolling capture, screen recording to MP4 or GIF, a full annotation editor, built-in OCR, and automatic workflows that can annotate, save, and upload in one step.
Best for: anyone who takes a lot of screenshots or screen recordings and wants to automate what happens next.
Download: Download ShareX from the official site (official site or GitHub)
7-Zip: The Free Compression Standard
| 4 | 7-Zip | 26.01 | Free |
7-Zip is the free archiver almost everyone eventually switches to. It compresses and extracts just about every archive format, with excellent ratios and no nag screens. The paid alternatives cannot say the same.
Standout features: High-ratio 7z compression, support for ZIP, RAR, TAR, ISO, CAB and dozens more, AES-256 password encryption, and tidy Windows right-click integration.
Best for: everyone. It is the free replacement for WinRAR and WinZip that you set up once and forget.
Download: Download 7-Zip from 7-zip.org (official site)
| Important: Download From the Real Site Only 7-Zip does not auto-update, and fake lookalike sites have pushed malware. In early 2026, a copycat domain served a poisoned 7-Zip installer that hijacked PCs. Only ever download from 7-zip.org, and keep your version current to stay protected. |
Notepad++: A Better Editor for Code and Text
| 5 | Notepad++ | 8.9.6.4 | Free |
Notepad++ is the lightweight text and code editor that puts the built-in Windows Notepad to shame. It is fast, free, and endlessly extensible, ideal for quick edits without firing up a heavy code editor.
Standout features: Syntax highlighting for dozens of languages, tabbed editing with split view, macro recording, powerful find and replace with regex, and a library of 140-plus plugins.
Best for: quick code edits, tweaking config files, reading logs, and anyone who wants a real upgrade over Notepad.
Download: Download Notepad++ from the official site (official site)
VLC: Plays Absolutely Any Media File
| 6 | VLC media player | 3.0.23 | Free |
VLC is the universal media player that simply plays everything. No hunting for codecs, no ads, no spyware. If another player refuses to open a file, VLC almost always will.
Standout features: Plays nearly every audio and video format and disc, streaming and conversion tools, subtitle sync, an equalizer, and video filters, all free and open source.
Best for: everyone. It is the one media player that handles whatever file you throw at it.
Download: Download VLC from videolan.org (official site)
| Good to Know VLC 3.0.23 is the current stable release. The big VLC 4.0 rewrite is still in development (it stole the show with next-gen video playback at CES 2026), but it is not a finished release yet, so the stable build is the one to install today. |
qBittorrent: Ad-Free Torrent Downloads
| 7 | qBittorrent | 5.2.2 | Free |
qBittorrent is a clean, lightweight, completely ad-free BitTorrent client. It does everything the bloated, ad-filled alternatives do, minus the junk. And it is open source.
Standout features: A built-in torrent search engine, RSS auto-downloading, sequential downloading, bandwidth scheduling, and a remote Web UI for managing downloads from another device.
Best for: legally downloading large files like Linux distributions, open-source software, and public-domain media, ad-free.
Download: Download qBittorrent from the official site (official site)
| Heads Up qBittorrent is not on the Microsoft Store, and ad-filled fakes get uploaded by third parties. Download only from the official site. Your antivirus may show a false positive, which is common for torrent clients and not a real threat from the official build. |
Bitwarden: The Best Free Password Manager
| 8 | Bitwarden | 2026.5.0 | Free |
Bitwarden is a secure, open-source password manager whose free plan is genuinely all most people need. It stores unlimited passwords and syncs them across all your devices for nothing.
Standout features: Strong AES-256 encryption, unlimited passwords and passkeys on unlimited devices, a built-in password generator, browser autofill, and Windows Hello biometric unlock.
Best for: everyone. If you still reuse passwords, this is the free fix that protects every account behind one master password.
Download: Download Bitwarden from the official site (official site or app stores)
| Worth Knowing The free plan covers the essentials at no cost forever. There is an optional Premium tier (now about $20 a year) that adds advanced two-factor options and encrypted file storage, but most people never need it. |
HWiNFO: Monitor Your PC’s Health and Temperatures
| 9 | HWiNFO | 8.48 | Free |
HWiNFO is the go-to free tool for seeing exactly what is inside your PC and how it is behaving in real time. It reads every sensor on your system, so you always know your temperatures and performance.
Standout features: Detailed hardware information, live monitoring of CPU and GPU temperatures, voltages, fan speeds and clocks, throttling alerts, and exportable logs in CSV, HTML, and JSON.
Best for: diagnosing overheating, checking a new PC build, monitoring during gaming or overclocking, and auditing hardware.
Download: Download HWiNFO from the official site (official site, free for personal use)
Obsidian: Build Your Own Knowledge Base
| 10 | Obsidian | 1.12.7 | Free |
Obsidian is a free, local-first note-taking app that turns plain text files into a connected web of knowledge. Your notes live on your own device as Markdown files, so you truly own them, with no lock-in.
Standout features: Plain-text Markdown notes you control, linked notes with a visual graph view, a Canvas for mapping ideas, database-style views, and over 1,000 community plugins.
Best for: building a personal knowledge base or second brain, research, writing projects, journaling, and documentation.
Download: Download Obsidian from obsidian.md (official site, free for personal and work use)
| Good to Know Obsidian became free for both personal and work use back in 2025, so you can use it anywhere at no cost. Optional paid Sync and Publish services exist, but the core app is completely free. The public stable build is 1.12.7. |
One Rule for All of These: Download From Official Sources
This matters more than any single tool. Popular free software is a favorite target for scammers. They set up fake lookalike sites that serve the real app bundled with malware. It is one of the most common ways everyday PCs get infected.
In early 2026, a fake 7-Zip download site did exactly this. It quietly hijacked the PCs of people who grabbed the installer from the wrong place. The fix is simple and free: always download from the official website or official GitHub page, which are the exact links we have used throughout this guide. Never trust random mirror or download-aggregator sites.
For more on staying safe, see our guide to spotting online scams, and our walkthrough of the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool for cleaning up if something slips through.
You really do not need to spend a cent to get more out of your PC. These ten free Windows software picks cover the jobs that matter most, faster searching, easy screenshots, painless compression, secure passwords, media that just plays, and more, and every one is actively maintained in 2026. Pick the ones that fit how you use your computer, and grab them from the official links above. You will have a leaner, faster, more capable Windows setup for free. For even more free utilities with no overlap, check our roundup of free Windows cleanup and audio tools.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Best Free Windows Software in 2026
It depends on the job. For power-user tweaks, PowerToys is the top free pick; for file search, Everything; for screenshots, ShareX; for compression, 7-Zip; for passwords, Bitwarden; and for media, VLC. All ten tools in this guide are free and best-in-class for their category.
Are These Windows Tools Really Free
Yes. Every tool here is free to download and use. Most are open source and a couple are freeware. A few, like Bitwarden and Obsidian, offer optional paid extras, but the core apps are genuinely free with no catch.
Is It Safe to Download Free Windows Software
Yes, as long as you download from the official source. The danger is fake lookalike sites that bundle malware. Always use the developer’s official website or official GitHub page, like the links in this guide, and never random mirror sites.
Do These Tools Work on Windows 10 and 11
Yes. All ten work on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Several, including VLC, Bitwarden, qBittorrent, and Obsidian, also run on macOS, Linux, and mobile.
Which Free Tool Should I Install First
Start with PowerToys for instant quality-of-life upgrades, Bitwarden to secure your passwords, and 7-Zip and VLC as everyday essentials. From there, add Everything, ShareX, and the rest based on what you do most.
What Is the Best Free Alternative to WinRAR
7-Zip. It is completely free, has no nag screens, and compresses better than most paid options. It also extracts nearly every archive format, including RAR. Download it only from 7-zip.org.
