How to Export and Import a Power Plan in Windows 10
A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how computers use and conserve power. A power plan is also known as a power scheme. You can create custom power plans that are optimized for specific computers.
By default, Windows 10 includes three built-in power plans: Balanced, Power Saver, and High Performance. You can customize these existing plans for your systems, create new plans that are based on the existing plans, or create a new power plan from scratch.
You can export a power plan and all its settings to a .pow file, then be able to import the .pow file to restore the power plan and it's settings on any Windows PC.
This tutorial will show you how to export (backup) and import (restore) a power plan along with its settings in Windows 10.
You must be signed in as an administrator to be able export and import power plans.
1 Open an elevated command prompt.
2 Copy and paste either command below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter to see a list of all existing power plans on the PC along with their GUID. (see screenshot below)
3 Make note of the GUID of the power plan (ex: "My Custom Plan 1") you want to export. (see screenshot above)
4 Type the command below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter to export the power plan. (see screenshot below)
powercfg -export "%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanBackup.pow" GUID
Substitute GUID in the command above with the actual GUID from step 3 of the power plan you want to export.
For example:powercfg -export "%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanBackup.pow" 48569655-ebee-4428-b456-512f207cddc2
5 A PowerPlanBackup.pow file will be saved to your desktop as the backup of the power plan. You can rename this file to anything you like, but it must keep the .pow file extension. Save the file to where you like to keep it at.
6 When finished, you can close the command prompt if you like.
1 Open an elevated command prompt.
2 Type the command below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter to import the power plan. (see screenshot below)
powercfg -import "Full path of .pow file"
Substitute Full path of .pow file in the command above with the actual full path of the .pow file of the power plan you exported in Option One.
For example:powercfg -import "%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanBackup.pow"
4 When finished, you can close the command prompt if you like.
5 Users on the PC will now be able to select the imported power plan as their active power plan.
That's it,
Shawn
Related Tutorials
- How to See Your Current Active Power Plan Scheme in Windows 10
- How to Choose a Power Plan in Windows 10
- How to Create a Custom Power Plan in Windows 10
- How to Change Power Plan Settings in Windows 10
- How to Rename a Power Plan in Windows 10
- How to Delete a Power Plan in Windows 10
- How to Reset and Restore Power Plans to Default Settings in Windows 10
- How to Add or Remove Power Options Context Menu in Windows 10
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- How to Add or Remove Ultimate Performance Power Plan in Windows 10
- How to Restore Missing Default Power Plans in Windows 10
- How to View All Power Plan Settings in a Text File in Windows