Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

ImageMagick is the app Copilot recommends, but the IT department won't let me use it to automate photo resizing. They're forcing me to use ImageResize from PowerToys. They claim it's integrated, but I can't see it, and since I don't have administrator privileges, I can't find the executable file.
Could someone please help me?
Thanks

Categories:

Power Automate Desktop

Hi there,

The core issue is a misunderstanding about what Image Resizer is - and once that’s clear, the PAD approach makes sense.

Why you can’t find an executable

PowerToys Image Resizer is a Windows shell extension, not a standalone command-line program. You use it by right-clicking one or more selected image files in File Explorer and choosing Resize with ImageResizer. That’s why there’s no obvious .exe to point Power Automate Desktop at - it’s designed to be driven from the File Explorer context menu, not called like a CLI tool.

Why you might not “see” it

PowerToys can be installed in two channels, which affects visibility and where it lives:

Per User - installed only for the current user, under %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Programs.
Machine wide - installed for all users.

If IT did a machine-wide install but the extension isn’t showing in your right-click menu, that’s worth raising with them; if it’s a per-user install under a different account, you wouldn’t see it under yours. Checking that AppData\Local\Programs path is a good first step.

How to automate it in Power Automate Desktop

Since it’s a context-menu action, the documented way to automate it is with PAD’s UI automation actions - have the flow open the folder in File Explorer, select the images, invoke the right-click menu, and click Resize with ImageResizer, then drive the resize dialog. One important note from the docs: to automate apps running with elevated privileges, Power Automate may need to run with the same or higher privileges (i.e. as administrator) - which, given your permissions, is also a point to coordinate with IT.

References (Microsoft Learn)

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Raghav Mishra - LinkedIn | PowerAI Labs