How To Delete A Power Plan In Windows 10

Also going by the name of "power schemes", power plans are built Into the Windows operating system. They're basically a collection of hardware and system settings, that allow your computer to manage It's power consumption. You can create your very own power plan, or use any of the native options. In this tutorial, I will show you how to delete any power plan you like, without the aid of additional software.


Before I make a start, here's what I'm referring to. Navigate to the following directory:

 Windows Settings > System > Power & sleep > Additional power settings

The Power Options window will now open, with all the available power plans.

By default, Windows has three native power plans, namely Balanced, High performance and Power saver. You can use either of these or alternatively, create one of your own by selecting the Create a power plan option to the left of the Power Options window.

But what If you've created one, and no longer need It? Or perhaps you wish to delete one of the built-In power plans? Well, I will demonstrate how to delete any power plan, by using the good old Command Prompt. So let's get this tutorial started.

Step One:
To access the Command Prompt, open the Run menu, enter cmd and hit OK.

Step Two:
Next, copy & paste powercfg /list Into the Command Prompt, and hit Enter on your keyboard.

Step Three:
A list of all active power plans will now be displayed. For the purpose of this guide, I shall delete the built-In High performance power plan as Illustrated below.

Step Four:
The syntax to delete a given power plan, Is as follows.

powercfg -delete GUID

Replace the GUID, with the one that corresponds to your power plan. For example, I will delete my High performance power plan, by using the following command. The red bit Is It's GUID. Your code should be In a similar format.

powercfg -delete 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c

I've now entered the above code Into the Command Prompt, and pressed the Enter key.

Step Five:
My High performance power plan has been deleted. Upon navigating to the Power Options, as you can see, It's not listed. Perfect!

Last Step:
To make absolutely sure It's been deleted, enter powercfg /list Into the Command Prompt to view the available power plans. In my case, only Balanced and Power saver Is listed, hence the High performance plan Is confirmed as deleted.

Final Thoughts:
This may seem like a lengthy process, but you'll be surprised at just how quick and easy It Is to delete a given power plan. In fact, the entire process only takes a couple of minutes at the maximum. Although you can restore a power plan, be sure to double-check that you've actually selected the correct one prior to performing the above tasks.