How To Update Apps Using Winget in Windows 11 & 10

This tutorial in the WinGet Basics series teaches you how to update apps using WinGet.

WinGet is a complete package manager for Windows. That means, apart from searching and installing your favorite apps, you can also update them using winget. The good thing is, you can either update a specific app or update all apps at once. In this quick and simple tutorial, let me show you how to list all the available updates and how to update apps using winget. Let’s get started.

Tutorial Series: WinGet Command-Line Basics

• Search and install apps using winget
• Update apps using winget (this tutorial)
• Uninstall apps using winget

Update Apps Using WinGet in Windows

1. Right-click the “Windows” icon on the taskbar.
2. Select the “Terminal” option.
3. Run winget upgrade command to list available updates.
4. Copy the ID of the app you want to update.
5. Run winget upgrade "AppID" command while replacing “AppID” with the ID you got earlier to update that specific app.
6. To update all apps at once, run winget upgrade --all
7. Once the updates are done, close the terminal window.

Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)

First, we must open the Terminal application. To do that, right-click the Windows icon (or press Windows key + X) on the taskbar and select the “Terminal” option.

Once the terminal window opens, run the following command to list all the available app updates.

winget upgrade

Once you have the list of available upgrades, you have two options. You can either update a specific app or all apps at once.

Update specific app:

To update a specific app, copy its App ID from the “ID” column. For example, I want to update the HWMonitor app. So I copied its App ID “CPUID.HWMonitor”. Next, run the following command while replacing the “AppID” with the actual ID.

winget upgrade "AppID"

For example, since I want to update HWMonitor, my command looks like this:

winget upgrade "CPUID.HWMonitor"

Update all apps at once (bulk update):

To update all apps at once, run the following command:

winget upgrade --all

Sometimes, winget cannot determine the version number of an installed app. In that case, it will skip it from the update. If you want, you can force winget to update all apps by running the following command.

winget upgrade -u --all

Advanced users can also update apps using winget on schedule. That way, you don’t have to manually update your installed apps.

Wrapping Up: Updating Apps Using Winget

That is all. It is that simple to update apps with winget. A couple of things you should keep in mind while using winget to update apps is that if an app is not available in winget’s repository or if it is not installed using winget, it might not be updated.

If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.