Manage the Power on Your Windows Using Powercfg Command

Step 1. Open CMD

To use powercfg, you should first run the Command Prompt as an administrator by pressing the Windows key + X, and selecting Terminal (Admin) from the Power User Menu. If the User Account Control (UAC) window prompts, select Yes.

Step 2. View power plans

Type this command below in the CMD interface and press Enter to list all available power plans on your Windows, indicating which one is active:

powercfg /list

Step 3. Switch between power plans

If you want to switch the active one to another power plan, enter the command below. Replace GUID with the actual GUID (Global Unique Identifier) of the power plan you want to change.

powercfg /setactive GUID

Step 4. Analyze power usage

By building a detailed report on power usage and energy in CMD, you can analyze your power usage efficiency. This report highlights potential power efficiency issues. Please use the command below:

powercfg /energy

Wait until the command finishes, and you will find a new file named energy-report.html saved in the following location. Open it in a browser and view the report.

C:\Windows\System32

Step 5. Generate laptop battery report

If you are using a laptop, you can also build a detailed analysis of the battery usage, including the time and length of charge and discharge cycles, capacity history and battery life estimates by using the command below:

powercfg /batteryreport

Wait until the command finishes, and you will find a new file named battery-report.html saved in the following location. Open it in a web browser to view the report.

C:\Users\UserName

Step 6. Restore default settings

If you want to reset all power plans back to the default settings provided by Windows, you can use this simple command:

powercfg /restoredefaultschemes