9 New Power Apps Features You Might Have Missed

Microsoft Power Apps continues to evolves at an impressive pace, delivering regular enhancements that often slip quietly under the radar. Although these smaller updates don’t always make headlines, they frequently deliver big improvements to your development experience, making everyday tasks faster, simpler and more intuitive.

Here are nine recent Power Apps enhancements that are well worth knowing about.

1. Drag and Drop Controls and Screens

A straightforward yet hugely helpful update is the new drag-and-drop functionality within the Power Apps tree view. If you’ve previously felt frustrated by the tedious clicks needed to reorder screens or controls, you’ll appreciate this update:

• Easily grab and move screens into position in the tree view
• Quickly drag controls within screens to rearrange them

This improvement makes reorganising your apps simpler and faster, enhancing your overall efficiency.

2. Enhanced Data Workspace

The Data Workspace in Power Apps has received notable enhancements, particularly when working with existing tables. Some of the key improvements include:

• Easier addition and management of existing tables
• Automatic visualisation of table relationships
• Improved editing and data viewing directly within the workspace
• Full support for all column types, including files, images and lookup columns
• Better integration with Copilot to streamline table creation

By simplifying the process of managing data relationships, these updates help developers spend less time troubleshooting and more time building impactful applications.

3. Updated App Creation Experience

Starting from a blank canvas is now easier than ever. The refreshed “Create” screen prominently features a “Start with a blank canvas” option, allowing you to choose tablet, phone, or responsive layouts right from the outset. Additionally, enhanced integration with flows, AI Hub, Power Pages, and Copilot Studio streamlines the setup experience.

If you prefer building your apps from scratch rather than relying on templates, this update offers a smoother and clearer starting point.

4. New Screen Templates (Preview)

Microsoft has expanded its template library with practical new screen templates, currently available in preview:

• Approval request screens
• Welcome screens
• Headers
• Headers and tables
• Tables and forms

These responsive templates utilise modern controls by default. For instance, the “Tables and Forms” template automatically generates a functional, responsive app with built-in pagination as soon as it’s linked to your data source.

5. Stock Photos Library

Power Apps now includes a built-in library of stock photos, available directly when setting image properties. The library includes categories such as:

• Backgrounds and scenery
• Cutout people in various poses
• Stickers and decorative elements

Though it might not be your most-used feature, it’s incredibly useful when you need quick access to professional-quality visual assets, without external image sources.

6. Asset Clean-Up Tool

Keeping your app lean and efficient has become much easier thanks to a simple yet effective asset clean-up tool—easily identified by the broom icon. This feature allows you to quickly remove:

• Unused data sources
• Redundant media files and images
• Unused Power Automate connections

Regular use of this tool helps keep your apps streamlined and efficient, saving resources and improving performance.

7. Copy and Paste Entire Screens

Previously, copying and pasting individual controls was straightforward—but copying entire screens was not supported. Now, you can copy an entire screen, including all its controls, containers and configurations. This feature is particularly useful when:

• Moving screens between different apps
• Building reusable screen templates
• Quickly duplicating screens with similar layouts

Additionally, you can store frequently used screen designs externally by copying the YAML code, enhancing reusability across projects.

8. Restore Older App Versions

Version history management has significantly improved. Previously limited to restoring versions no older than six months, Power Apps now allows you to:

• View and restore any version of your app’s entire history
• Recover designs and functionality from much earlier iterations
• Track and compare how your app has evolved over its entire lifespan

This extension provides developers with more flexibility and reassurance, particularly beneficial for longer-term app projects.

9. Plans Inline Editing

The “Plans” feature, which helps structure apps by defining user roles and requirements, now includes inline editing capability. You can directly:

• Add new user requirements
• Remove unnecessary items
• Rearrange stories quickly
• Manually edit or type custom user stories

Following your edits, Power Apps automatically reconsiders table structures and app layouts based on the new requirements, offering increased flexibility and responsiveness to changing business needs.

Small Improvements, Big Impact

Individually these updates might seem small, but collectively they represent substantial improvements to your Power Apps development experience. Whether streamlining app organisation, simplifying data management, or speeding up everyday maintenance tasks, these enhancements help you build better, more effective apps—faster.

At Circyl, we ensure our clients benefit from all the latest Power Apps enhancements. If you’d like to explore how these features could improve your own app-building experience—or simply discuss best practices in Power Apps development—get in touch with our team today.