A low-latency screen magnifier for Windows.
Built for accessibility, streamers, photographers, retro-gaming, and pixel art. For anyone who has ever shouted at the built-in Windows Magnifier for stuttering, blurring, or collapsing the desktop on launch. Free to use — with an optional Pro tier for colour filters, colour-blind correction, and more.
Three problems it sidesteps.
The shipped magnify.exe is fine for occasional reading, but it has structural issues this project was built to avoid.
Lens mode jitters
The system magnifier ticks on the regular Windows timer, which is coalesced at low load. This uses a high-resolution waitable timer pinned to the display refresh rate, then calls DwmFlush() once per tick so the magnified frame composites in the same vsync interval that produced it. No smear trails, even at 240 Hz.
Full-screen mode hijacks the desktop
On multi-monitor setups the built-in tool routinely picks the wrong display. This keeps the lens confined to the monitor your cursor is on and lets you move it between displays without re-entering the mode.
You cannot rebind a single hotkey
Changing the built-in shortcuts means registry surgery. Here every action is rebindable from a UI tab, with conflict detection for the Ctrl+Alt+Arrow rotation defaults that Intel and AMD ship.
Fast, precise, and yours to bind.
Lens & full-screen modes
A movable rectangle that magnifies whatever is under it, following the mouse or nudged from keyboard or controller. Or magnify the entire desktop with the cursor as the anchor.
Refresh-rate aware
Auto-detects the monitor frequency and ticks once per panel refresh. Pinning to vsync via DwmFlush() eliminates the low-zoom ghost trails common on 240 Hz panels.
Controller support
Three back-ends: XInput for Xbox-style pads, Windows.Gaming.Input for Bluetooth Xbox and DualSense, and raw HID for everything else.
Configurable smoothing
Independent time constants for position and zoom, so you can dial in everything from instant to buttery cinematic.
Local IPC
A named pipe lets magnifier --toggle from any shell control the running instance instead of spawning a duplicate.
Self-updater
Polls for new builds and updates in place silently — anonymously from GitHub on the free build, or through your account for Pro. No telemetry. Off-switch in Settings.
Colour & contrast filters Pro
Invert, grayscale, sepia, and live brightness / contrast / saturation on the magnified image — the high-contrast modes low-vision users rely on, applied in both lens and full-screen.
Colour-blind correction Pro
Daltonization filters for protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia that redistribute hues you can't tell apart into channels you can — system-wide, under the lens.
Cursor crosshair Pro
Full-width and full-height lines that track the pointer so you never lose it at high zoom. Customisable colour, thickness, and opacity; excluded from screen capture.
Start free. Unlock Pro when you need it.
The magnifier itself is free forever and needs no account. Pro adds the accessibility and customisation features — tied to your AMSA tools account and downloaded right here.
Everything you need to magnify
Lens & full-screen modes, refresh-rate-pinned smoothing, rebindable hotkeys, full controller support, local IPC/CLI, and silent self-update. Open source, no account required.
Colour, contrast & precision
Adds colour & contrast filters, colour-blind correction, and the cursor crosshair, plus account sign-in and account-gated updates. Installed and updated through your account.
Every binding is yours to change.
Sensible defaults out of the box, all rebindable from Settings → Hotkeys with inline conflict warnings.
| Action | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Toggle lens | Ctrl+Alt+Z | Show or hide the lens rectangle |
| Toggle full-screen | Ctrl+Alt+F | Switch the whole desktop into magnified mode |
| Turn off | Ctrl+Alt+X | Exit any active magnification mode |
| Show settings | Ctrl+Alt+S | Open the Settings window |
| Zoom in / out | Ctrl+Alt++ Ctrl+Alt+- | Step the zoom level up or down |
| Lens size | Ctrl+Alt+] Ctrl+Alt+[ | Grow or shrink the lens rectangle |
| Recenter | Ctrl+Alt+C | Snap the lens and zoom back to the cursor |
Free to magnify. Pro when you want more.
Grab the free build from GitHub, or sign in to unlock and install Magnifier Pro through your account.