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Introduction to desktop flows

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Warning

We've identified that an upcoming Chrome browser update, scheduled to be released on Tuesday, May 2, 2023, and Microsoft Edge update, scheduled to be released on Thursday, May 4, 2023, might cause an interruption to your desktop flow automation. Users might receive an error when attempting to perform flow automations from Chrome or Edge with update 113. We recommend that you turn off automatic updates to Chrome and Edge 113 while we work to release a fix by the end of day Tuesday, May 2, 2023.

Desktop flows broaden the existing robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities in Power Automate and enable you to automate all repetitive desktop processes. Automating is quicker and easier than ever with the new intuitive Power Automate desktop flow designer using the prebuilt drag-and-drop actions or recording your own desktop flows to run later.

Desktop flows are addressed to essentially everyone who is performing simple or complex rule-based tasks on their workstations. Users at home, small businesses, enterprises, or larger companies can leverage automation capabilities in Power Automate to create flows, interact with everyday tools like email and Excel, or work with modern and legacy applications. Examples of simple and complex tasks you can automate are:

  • Quickly organize your documents using dedicated files and folders actions
  • Accurately extract data from websites and store them in Excel files using web and Excel automation
  • Apply desktop automation capabilities to put your work on autopilot

If you're a home user who is accessing a weather website to see tomorrow's forecast or a self-employed businessperson extracting information from vendors' invoices or even an employee of a large enterprise who automates data entry on an ERP system, Power Automate is designed for you.

It allows you to automate both legacy applications, such as terminal emulators, modern web and desktop applications, Excel files, and folders. You can interact with the machine using application UI elements, images, or coordinates.

Sign in to Power Automate Windows application using one of the following accounts and automate your tedious tasks:

A full comparison of the features included in each account can be found at Sign-in account comparison.

Here's a list of Known issues and limitations for Power Automate.

To create desktop flows using legacy Windows recorder (V1) and Selenium IDE as alternative solutions, go to Introduction to other types of desktop flows.