UIA Inspector is a powerful, standalone UI Automation element inspector built entirely in AutoHotkey v2. Simply press a hotkey to capture any UI element under your mouse — instantly revealing its properties, supported patterns, and full tree hierarchy. With the built-in macro recorder and Scintilla code editor, you can visually build and test automation scripts without writing a single line of code by hand. Whether you’re automating legacy Win32 apps, modern UWP interfaces, or Chromium-based browsers, UIA Inspector gives you X-ray vision into every button, textbox, and control on your desktop.
🚀 NEW UIA Library & Inspector Tool – 3x Smaller, 10x Better!
Updated on 2026/04/29 (UIA Version: 2.1.0, UIA Browser Version: 1.1.0)
Stop Guessing Control Names. Start Shipping Windows Automation.
If you’ve ever tried to automate a Windows program and spent an hour guessing at control names, class names, and magic strings — UIA Inspector is the tool you wish you’d had from day one. Hover your mouse over any button, press F1, and you get working AutoHotkey v2 code. That’s it. That’s the workflow.
What It Actually Does
UIA Inspector is a point-and-click tool that tells you everything Windows UI Automation knows about the control under your mouse — its Type, Name, AutomationId, ClassName, BoundingRectangle, and which actions you can run on it. Then it writes the AHK code for you, lets you test it against the live app, and copies it to your clipboard.
No more “guess, run, crash, tweak, run, crash” loop. Hover → F1 → Add → Test → Copy. Four steps, start to finish.
The Four-Step Workflow
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Hover | Move the mouse over any button, edit box, menu, or list item — in any app. |
| 2. Capture | Press F1. A green box lights up the element and all four info panels fill instantly. |
| 3. Add Step | Pick an action (Click, SetValue, Toggle, etc.), click Add element, and one line of code appears. |
| 4. Test & Copy | Hit Test to run it live against the app. Hit Copy to paste into your script. |
Why It’s Different From Every Other Inspector
Microsoft’s Inspect.exe shows you properties and stops there. AccEvent walks the tree and stops there. UIA Inspector is built for the person who actually has to write the automation script — so it closes every gap between “I can see the control” and “I have working code running against it.”
- Anchor Variables — five buttons called “OK” in your app? Name a parent panel once and every search scopes to it. Rename the anchor later and every step using it updates automatically.
- Path Uniqueness Indicator — green means your selector hits exactly one element. Red means it’s ambiguous. You know before you add the step that the script is reliable.
- Double-Click-to-Fire Patterns — every action the control supports (Invoke, Toggle, Value, ExpandCollapse, Select, Scroll) shows up as a clickable leaf. Double-click it and it fires on the live app. Proof-of-concept in under a second.
- Live Tracking (F2) — the inspector follows your mouse and re-inspects 10 times a second. Perfect for exploring an unfamiliar app or catching hover-only popups.
- Guide Mode — a blue box highlights “the next thing you should click” based on what you’ve done so far. First-timers never get lost.
- Deep Scan vs Fast Scan — fast by default (milliseconds on huge windows), flip a checkbox to see every last element in the raw tree.
- Auto-Elevates When Needed — hit F1 on Task Manager or Registry Editor and it offers to relaunch with admin rights. The title bar turns red so you always know what mode you’re in.
Works On Almost Everything
Win32, .NET, WPF, WinUI, Electron, Chrome, Edge, Visual Studio, Office, Teams, Slack, most modern installers, even legacy accounting software from the ’90s. If Windows UI Automation can see it, UIA Inspector can automate it.
Chromium browsers don’t expose their accessibility tree by default? No problem — UIA Inspector silently wakes it up the first time you capture. You don’t need to know that; it just works.
What The Generated Code Looks Like
Clean, readable AutoHotkey v2 — exactly what you’d write by hand if you already knew every AutomationId in the target app:
#Include S:\lib\v2\UIA2\UIA.ahkwinEl := UIA.ElementFromHandle(“Settings ahk_exe SystemSettings.exe”)
settingsPanel := winEl.FindFirst({AutomationId: “SystemSettings_Display_Brightness”})settingsPanel.FindFirst({Type: “Slider”}).SetValue(50)
Sleep 50
settingsPanel.FindFirst({Type: “Button”, Name: “Apply”}).Invoke()
No fragile pixel coordinates. No brittle Send macros that break when someone resizes a window. Real UI Automation calls against stable element properties — the kind of script that still works six months later.
Who This Is For
- RPA developers tired of fighting with brittle screen-scraping tools.
- QA testers who need reliable, maintainable UI test scripts.
- Data-entry teams moving information between apps that don’t talk to each other.
- Accessibility engineers verifying that controls expose the right UIA properties.
- AutoHotkey hobbyists who want to automate anything on their desktop without reading 400 pages of UIA spec.
You don’t need to understand UI Automation internals. The inspector hides that complexity behind a friendly window. You point, it writes the code, you ship the automation.
What You Get
- UIA Inspector v2.5.0 — both .ahk source and compiled .exe (no dependencies).
- Four-panel inspector window — Window Info, Properties, Anchor Points, Patterns.
- Full UIA tree view with filter, deep/fast scan, and keyboard navigation.
- Scintilla-powered syntax-highlighted script editor with undo.
- Configurable hotkeys via a built-in Preferences UI.
- Guide Mode, Mouse Tips, and a pop-up hotkey cheat sheet for fast onboarding.
- A complete, illustrated User Guide (HTML + PDF).
- 200% moneyback guarantee — if it doesn’t save you hours of automation work, you get your money back twice over.
Every hour you spend guessing at control names is an hour you could have spent shipping automation. UIA Inspector turns that hour into four keystrokes: F1 → Add → Test → Copy.
Grab It Now
Stop wrestling with Inspect.exe. Stop guessing at class names. Let the tool do the boring part so you can get to the automation you actually care about.
