MWBToggle

Toggle Mouse Without Borders clipboard and file sharing on/off with a hotkey or tray icon click.

A lightweight system tray companion for PowerToys Mouse Without Borders that lets you quickly disable clipboard/file sharing for privacy (passwords, sensitive data) — for when you're doing a lot of local copy/paste and don't want it constantly going to the MWB watcher. Also helps with large file copies not lagging you when you're not using the feature. Since it runs per-machine, you can also disable sharing on one side to create one-way sharing. MWB stays enabled — this only manipulates the clipboard server in the background.

Features

• Hotkey toggle: Ctrl + Alt + C (configurable via menu or INI) flips both ShareClipboard and TransferFile
• Tray icon: Green = sharing ON, Red = sharing OFF. Left-click to toggle.
• Middle-click: Opens the MWB settings window directly
• Pause sharing: Temporarily disable for 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or indefinitely with auto-resume
• Independent file transfer toggle: Control TransferFile separately from ShareClipboard
• PowerToys submenu: Quick access to PowerToys MWB settings and the legacy MWB configuration
• Run at startup: One-click toggle to add/remove from Windows Startup folder
• One-way sharing: Disable sharing on one machine while keeping it on another for directional clipboard/file transfer
• Zero polling: Uses OS-level FileSystemWatcher — no CPU usage when idle
• On-screen display: Floating tooltip at cursor position (no toast notification spam)

Screenshots

Sharing ON	Sharing OFF	Tray Menu

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• PowerToys with Mouse Without Borders enabled

Installation

Option 1: Download

Grab MWBToggle.exe from the latest release — single file, self-contained, no .NET runtime needed.

Option 2: Scoop (coming soon)

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install mwbtoggle

Option 3: WinGet (coming soon)

winget install itsnateai.MWBToggle

Option 4: Build from source

git clone https://github.com/itsnateai/MousewithoutBordersToggle.git
cd MousewithoutBordersToggle

# Framework-dependent (~280KB, requires .NET 8 runtime)
dotnet publish -c Release

# Self-contained (~147MB, no runtime needed)
dotnet publish -c Release --self-contained true

Output: bin/Release/net8.0-windows/win-x64/publish/MWBToggle.exe

Customization

Create a MWBToggle.ini file in the same folder as the exe:

[Settings]
Hotkey=^!c
ConfirmToggle=false
SoundFeedback=false
MiddleClickMwbSettings=true

Key	Default	Description
Hotkey	^!c	Hotkey string (# Win, ^ Ctrl, ! Alt, + Shift)
ConfirmToggle	false	Prompt before each toggle
SoundFeedback	false	Beep on toggle (high tone ON, low tone OFF)
MiddleClickMwbSettings	true	Middle-click tray icon opens MWB settings

How It Works

MWBToggle reads and writes the PowerToys Mouse Without Borders settings.json file directly:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\PowerToys\MouseWithoutBorders\settings.json

It toggles the ShareClipboard and TransferFile values using regex replacement, creates a backup before each write, and retries if the file is locked by MWB.

Troubleshooting

"Mouse Without Borders doesn't appear to be running"

• Make sure PowerToys is running and Mouse Without Borders is enabled in PowerToys settings.

"Settings file not found"

• Mouse Without Borders must be run at least once to create its settings file.

"Could not write to settings.json"

• The file may be locked by MWB. Wait a moment and try again.

Project Structure

Path	Description
MWBToggle.csproj	.NET 8 project file
Program.cs	Entry point — single-instance enforcement
MWBToggleApp.cs	Main tray app — toggle, sync, pause, OSD, config
GlobalHotkey.cs	Win32 RegisterHotKey with AHK-style string parsing
AboutForm.cs	About dialog with GitHub link
IniConfig.cs	Minimal INI file reader
on.ico / mwb.ico	Tray icons (embedded as resources)
legacy/MWBToggle.ahk	Original AutoHotkey v2 script (archived)

License

MIT