I use multiple monitors and I kept wanting to center a window on whatever screen I was looking at. Windows doesn’t have a shortcut for that, so I wrote a quick AutoHotkey script. Hit Win + C and it centers the active window on its current monitor, accounting for the taskbar. Works on multiple monitors and ultrawides.

The script

; Center active window
#c::  {
    WinGetPos(&X, &Y, &W, &H, "A")
    CoordMode("Mouse", "Screen")
    MouseGetPos(&mouseX, &mouseY)
    monitorNumber := MonitorGetPrimary()

    ; Find which monitor the window is actually on
    Loop MonitorGetCount() {
        MonitorGetWorkArea(A_Index, &mLeft, &mTop, &mRight, &mBottom)
        if (X >= mLeft && X < mRight && Y >= mTop && Y < mBottom) {
            monitorNumber := A_Index
            break
        }
    }

    ; Calculate perfect center for THAT monitor
    MonitorGetWorkArea(monitorNumber, &monitorLeft, &monitorTop, &monitorRight, &monitorBottom)
    newX := monitorLeft + (monitorRight - monitorLeft - W) / 2
    newY := monitorTop + (monitorBottom - monitorTop - H) / 2
    WinMove newX, newY,,, "A"
}

Setup

1. Install AutoHotkey v2+.
2. Save the script as a .ahk file, like CenterWindow.ahk.
3. Run the script by right-clicking and selecting “Run Script”. If you want it to run on startup, follow this.

Changing the hotkey

You can change #c to whatever key combo you prefer:

• ^!c for Ctrl + Alt + C
• #!Down for Win + Alt + Down Arrow

Check the AutoHotkey hotkey docs for more options. You can also add smooth transitions if you want animation.

Things to know

• Admin windows (Task Manager, elevated Command Prompt) need the script to run as admin too.
• Fullscreen apps might ignore the window positioning.
• On ultrawides, you can tweak the horizontal positioning:

  newX := monitorLeft + (monitorRight - monitorLeft - W) / 3  ; Position 1/3 from left
  

How it works

Here’s what the script does step by step:

CoordMode("Mouse", "Screen")
MouseGetPos(&mouseX, &mouseY)

This tells AutoHotkey to use screen coordinates instead of window-relative ones, which matters when you have multiple monitors.

Loop MonitorGetCount() {
    MonitorGetWorkArea(A_Index, &mLeft, &mTop, &mRight, &mBottom)
    if (X >= mLeft && X < mRight && Y >= mTop && Y < mBottom) {
        monitorNumber := A_Index
        break
    }
}

This loops through all monitors and checks which one the window is actually on by comparing the window position against each monitor’s boundaries.

newX := monitorLeft + (monitorRight - monitorLeft - W) / 2
newY := monitorTop + (monitorBottom - monitorTop - H) / 2

Then it calculates the center position using the monitor’s usable area (minus taskbar and docks) and the window size.