54

Is there a way of making powershell appear in fullscreen? Not only maximize it over the screen, but hiding the top-bar as well?

Also, since this is probably hard to do, how to maximize it according to current resolution?

cc0
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    You might find this ServerFault question to be of use: http://serverfault.com/questions/21367/setting-powershell-display-options-property – Nate Mar 04 '11 at 17:41
  • A-ha. Goodness. At least I can stretch it out, but the full screen shortcut does not do anything. – cc0 Mar 04 '11 at 17:50

7 Answers7

65

Try typing the following command:

mode 300

after the window opens

Yohanes Khosiawan 许先汉
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Hugh Chung
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    perfect solution, +1 for simplicity. – Tisch Jul 15 '14 at 09:32
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    if you run a single monitor configuration the mode 300 command works fine. If you are using dual monitor it does not. I thus often use the wmic command then maximize the window and and exit command as a sequence to go in full screen. – Postlagerkarte Sep 05 '14 at 21:27
  • Wow, I didn't even know this was possible. Wonder why I've been out of it for so long...oh wait, that's right: I've been using `bash` half the time and the other half getting `bash` to work in Windows :P Works great except the top-left corner of your window has to already be at the top-left part of your screen. It doesn't just re-position it for you. – Matt Borja Jun 17 '15 at 16:40
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    ...except this also clears the console, so I had to re-run the build to get the output back... :( – Tomas Aschan Mar 04 '16 at 09:52
36

Right click the top bar and select properties. Then depending on your screen resolution select the appropriate size. (under the layout tab).

technaj
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    Wow, it's 2011 and you still cannot maximize a console window in a user-friendly way. – binford Oct 18 '11 at 08:16
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    Windows 8 has full-screen mode for PowerShell when maximized. Apparently it has nothing tried to do with $host.Version=3. I upgraded PS in Windows 7 but still no full-screen mode. Nonetheless, you can use PS-ISE for full-screen experience in Windows 7. – vulcan raven Mar 20 '13 at 11:56
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    I come from the future. Still not possible in 2016. – Kul-Tigin Aug 08 '14 at 14:14
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    @Kul-Tigin Yep, that won't be true. Windows 10 brings a new shell that supports it ;) Oh, and it will come this year :D – func0der May 11 '15 at 08:02
  • @func0der this makes me a big liar but yay! anyways :D I really liked it. – Kul-Tigin Sep 30 '15 at 13:28
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    @Kul-Tigin , you are not a liar. You just created an alternative timeline. You should know how dangerous time-travelling can be. – Alexandre Martins Nov 19 '15 at 12:19
  • @Kul-Tigin, who built your time machine? In Windows 7, it's still not possible. In 2016. – Tomas Aschan Mar 04 '16 at 09:51
  • Wow...and people seriously wonder why Windows is perceived as an inferior dev platform for anything but .NET? – csvan May 09 '16 at 10:35
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    I can confirm, still not possible in 2016. – The Vivandiere May 09 '16 at 15:43
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    Seems to be possible in 2017. Hitting [Alt]+[Enter] goes full screen with no window title bar. You still get a vertical scrollbar down the right side though. – Lee Mar 03 '17 at 02:19
  • Still not possible in Window 7 professional, service pack 1 ...2017 .. Wow!! – old-monk Oct 24 '17 at 15:35
  • 2018 reporting in with windows 10. Alt+Enter and F11 both sometimes work and sometimes not. Usually they start working after the window has been open for a few minutes and has had a script or two run on it. – kbau Jan 27 '18 at 11:48
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    2020 reporting back in time, its still not possible on Windows 8 Powershell. – Rohitt Vashishtha May 22 '18 at 10:08
  • @kbau In PowerShell 6, it will run, but only if there is a program running in the foreground (e.g. `pause`, then F11) but not in the shell itself. – Aanand Kainth Jun 02 '19 at 06:38
34

ALT + ENTER will full screen the powershell window in Windows 10

If this doesn't work right click the title bar > properties > options and make sure "Use Legacy console" is unchecked:

powershell

dog
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  • This is now the correct answer. Unchecking "Use legacy console" allows the window to be resized like any other. – jairbow Mar 11 '16 at 06:32
  • Of course you'll have to go to the layout tab and reduce your height (probably to double-digits) to get rid of the scroll bar on the right-hand side. – StevoInco Jul 25 '18 at 21:25
  • Is there now way to simply maximize the window, keeping the title bar? EDIT: `Windows`+`Up` does the trick – Jacob Stamm Sep 04 '18 at 21:12
  • Ok, thanks for this: I've my 4yo kid around, and I didn't know what was the key he touched as I was typing. I've missed like 15 minutes. Sigh... – curropar Mar 28 '22 at 10:35
11

The trick to using PS in a modern fashion is to use a different type of terminal program. I use ConEmu as it is open-source and free.

Not only will it allow you to run the screen maximised, you can have several tabs, clear-type fonts, custom colours et cetera.

Together with the free 'Source Code Pro' font, it makes for a very nice PS environment.

Hope this helps

user2447446
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10

Display Options -> Fullscreen, or ALT+ENTER should enter fullscreen mode.

Brandon Frohbieter
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4

You can create a shortcut with 

"%SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe " -NoExit -Command "mode 300"

The -NoExit option will keep the console open after running the startup command, and the -Command option of course runs the command on console startup. Besides, if you're not an administrator or you're running Windows 8 (hence apps run as not privileged by default) you can setup your shortcut to run Powershell as administrator always.

Source

maaw
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  • This option was already suggested 4 months ago by [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/23667745/64046). – JasonMArcher Sep 29 '14 at 23:25
  • Yes but not as a shortcut, instead, as a command to be written after the console starts. I believe this way is more "permanent", if you will. – maaw Sep 29 '14 at 23:58
2

If it would be sufficient to merely maximize your PowerShell window, you can simply add -WindowStyle Maximized to your PowerShell shortcut:

C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -noexit -WindowStyle Maximized
Ksuvi Khor
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