You open a game and want full performance; you alt-tab to the browser and want it quiet again — but Windows has no concept of "this app gets this power plan." You either switch it by hand every time or you don't bother. PowerDoze adds that missing rule type: bind a process name to a power mode, and it switches automatically whenever that app is in the foreground.
Quick answer: Windows can't do this on its own — its power plan selector is a manual dropdown with no app awareness. PowerDoze lets you create a rule like game.exe → High performance and chrome.exe → Power saver; it checks the foreground app roughly every 3 seconds and switches automatically. This is a Pro feature.
Windows power plans (Balanced, High performance, Power saver, or a custom scheme) are a system-wide setting. There's a dropdown in Settings and an icon in the tray — both manual. Task Manager and the Xbox Game Bar can tell you an app is running, but neither one is wired to the power plan API. If you want "High performance while I'm gaming, Power saver the rest of the time," Windows expects you to remember to switch it back yourself.
Some game launchers (Steam, GeForce Experience) will nudge Windows toward a performance plan while a game is running, but that's launcher-specific — it doesn't help with video editors, compile jobs, or anything outside a small list of recognized titles, and it doesn't switch back to something quieter once you close the game.
PowerDoze reads the foreground window with the Windows GetForegroundWindow API and resolves it to a process name, checked on a timer roughly every 3 seconds. When the process matches a rule you've set, it requests the linked power mode; when you switch to something with no matching rule, it reverts to whatever your time-based schedule (or your manually selected mode) says should be active.
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
You launch game.exe | Within a few seconds, switches to the linked power mode |
| You alt-tab to an app with no rule | Reverts to your schedule or manually selected mode |
You close game.exe | Same — reverts once no matching process is in the foreground |
| Two rules could apply (whitelist + explicit rule) | The explicit app-power rule wins |
Create the power modes first — the settings you want bundled together (CPU limits, cooling, sleep and screen timeout, GPU power limit) for each situation. Then add a rule that links a process to a mode:
The app picker has three tabs: running apps (whatever's open right now), installed apps (a scan of installed programs, including a dedicated Steam library scan for games you haven't launched yet), and manual input if you just know the executable name. Whichever way you pick it, the rule matches on the exact process name — game.exe matches game.exe, not gamelauncher.exe or a differently-named build.
Best for: Games, video/photo editors, compile or render jobs — anything where you consistently want a different power profile while it's the app you're actively using.
PowerDoze also lets you attach a foreground power mode directly to a whitelist entry, as a shortcut for apps you're already tracking there. If you've separately created a dedicated app-power rule for that same process, the dedicated rule takes priority — no silent conflict, no guessing which one wins.
Best for: People who use the whitelist for other purposes (like keep-awake) and want explicit control over which one governs the power mode.
Want the same idea but triggered by time of day instead of which app is open? See scheduling power plans automatically by time — the two rule types work side by side, and time-based scheduling is free.
This isn't an instant, kernel-level hook — PowerDoze polls the foreground window roughly every 3 seconds, so switching happens within a few seconds of an app coming to the front, not the instant you alt-tab. For gaming or editing sessions that last minutes to hours, that gap is irrelevant. The matching itself is a strict, exact process-name comparison, and when an app matches both a whitelist shortcut and a dedicated rule, the dedicated rule always wins so behavior stays predictable.
Honest note: Detection is polling-based (~3 seconds), not an instant event hook — and app-based switching is a Pro feature, unlike time-based scheduling which is free.
No — Windows' power plan selector is manual and has no concept of "app A gets plan X." PowerDoze adds this as a rule type: bind a process name (like game.exe) to a power mode, and it switches automatically whenever that process is in the foreground.
It reads the foreground window's process with the Windows GetForegroundWindow API, checked on a timer roughly every 3 seconds. That means switching happens within a few seconds of an app coming to the front — not instantly like a native hook, but close enough that you won't notice a lag in practice.
It's an exact process-name match (case-insensitive) — game.exe matches game.exe, not gamelauncher.exe. You pick the process from a running-apps list, an installed-apps list (including a Steam library scan), or type the executable name manually.
PowerDoze reverts to whatever your time-based schedule (or manually selected mode) says should be active. There's no leftover "stuck in game mode" state — the app-power rule only holds while its process is actually in the foreground.
The explicit app-power rule wins. PowerDoze also lets you attach a foreground power mode directly to a whitelist entry as a shortcut, but if you've separately created a dedicated rule for that same process, the dedicated rule takes priority so there's no ambiguity.
Pro. Time-based scheduling is free (up to 3 rules), but switching by which app is in the foreground — like switching by Wi-Fi network — is a Pro feature.
Stop switching power plans by hand every time you open a game or close it. Bind an app to a power mode once — PowerDoze switches automatically from then on. Pro feature.
Download PowerDoze for Windows 10/11See also: Schedule power plans by time · High performance mode and battery drain · Change Windows sleep time · All features