How to Control Your PC with Google Assistant

While Windows 10 already has Cortana as its voice assistant, many users prefer Google Assistant for its great number of features and powerful capability to adapt to any ecosystem. However, the sad part is that Google Assistant is not available on desktop computers except Chromebooks and that is disappointing. Nevertheless, you should not be disheartened as we bring you an in-depth guide on how to control your PC with Google Assistant. In this article, I have mentioned some nifty ways to manage your computer with any Android smartphone, Google Home, Mini, Nest Hub, etc. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and learn how to control your PC with voice commands.

1. Control Your PC with Google Assistant

Before we begin, let me outline the basic premise of this tutorial. We are using an Android smartphone to control a Windows 10 PC. And for that, we are using Pushbullet and IFTTT apps on the mobile device and Push2Run application on the computer. Push2Run has been developed by Rob Latour and it’s completely free to use. The app is designed for automating tasks using voice commands and it’s excellent at that. So here is the break down of our task flow: Voice command through Google Assistant -> IFTTT -> Pushbullet -> Push2Run on PC -> Final execution of the task on PC. Now that you have got the basic idea, let’s begin.

1. First and foremost, install both Pushbullet (Free) and IFTTT (Free) apps on your Android device. After that, log in with your Google account on both the apps and allow necessary permissions. Make sure, you are using the same Google account across all apps and platforms.

2. Next, open Pushbullet and IFTTT‘s website on your PC and log in with the same Google account.

3. Having done that, now download and install the Push2Run (Free) application on your computer. You have almost set up the base, now we will move to the crucial steps.

4. Click on this link to open your Pushbullet’s account page. Now, scroll down and look for “Access Tokens”. After that, click on the “Create Access Token” button and it will offer you a string of key values. Copy that token and make sure you don’t share it with anyone.

5. Now open Push2Run application on your PC and go through the initial setup. On the first dialog, select “Pushbullet” in the left menu and check the box for “Enable Pushbullet”. After that, paste the copied token (from step #4) in the Pushbullet API box. Next, copy whatever is inside the “Title Filter” box and click on the “Ok” button.

6. Now, click on this link to create an IFTTT task. After that, click on the “+” button and then search for “Google Assistant”. Click on it and then select “Say a phrase with a text ingredient”.

7. On the next page, enter the voice commands that you will use to connect with your PC. I have chosen these commands to call on my PC, but you can choose your own set of commands. However, for now, I would advise you to follow my voice commands just so everything works without any issue. Keep in mind, the “$” sign is the task that you will ask your computer to execute. Finally, click on the “Create Trigger” button.

Note: In case, it shows some Google Assistant related errors, open this IFTTT Settings page and click on the “Edit” button. Now, authorize a fresh use of Google Assistant from your account.

8. Now onto the next page, click on “then that” part of the sentence. Here, search for “Pushbullet” and open it. After that, click on “Push a Note”. Next, paste the copied text from step #5 (Title Filter) inside the “Title” box. Finally, click on the “Create Action” button.

9. You are almost done. You can give a try by saying “OK Google tell my computer to open the calculator”. The calculator app should open up on your PC without any issue. Also, if everything is set up correctly, you should see “Pushbullet connection is good” in the bottom bar of the Push2Run app.

2. Create Push2Run Tasks

Now that you have successfully connected Google Assistant with your PC, you can create tasks that you would like to perform with a voice command. For example, in this section, I will show you how to open the Beebom website on PC with Google Assistant. Here we go.

1. Open the Push2Run app and click on “Actions” from the menu. Here, click on “Add”.

2. This is the window where you have to define everything. You can give a description of your task say, Beebom. Next, under the “Listen for” box, enter the voice command that you are likely to say. For example, I have entered, open beebom, open beebom.com, open beebom website. You can go to any length, right? Next, in the “Open” section, enter the URL directly. Make sure, the URLs have HTTP or www initializer. After that, hit the “OK” button.

3. Now, turn on the toggle in the main window and summon Google Assistant. Just say “tell my computer to open beebom” and your PC will instantly open the website in the default browser.

Note: We tried to open multiple websites through Chrome, but it didn’t work due to some bugs either in Push2Run or Windows 10. So, we changed the default web browser to Microsoft Edge and it started working flawlessly. To change the default browser from Windows Settings, open Settings -> Apps -> Default Apps -> Web Browser.

4. If you want to search for anything and not some particular website then you can create another task. Keep the description as you want and change “listen for” command to something like this: look for $, search for $ where $ is the query that you are searching for. And in the “Open” section, paste this: http://www.google.com/search?q=$. It will make sure the search results are from Google. Now summon your Assistant: “tell my computer to search for Beebom videos” and there you have it.

5. Similarly, here is another example of asking the Assistant to play a song on your PC through YouTube. We have used DuckDuckGo’s quick play URL feature. Here is the “Open” field for you to copy: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=!ducky+$+site%3Ayoutube.com

6. This is the last example in this article. Say, you want to shut down your computer with Google Assistant. It’s even easier. Keep the Open field as shutdown.exe and parameters as /s /t 10 /c "requested by Google Assistant". Here, we are using the native shutdown.exe program to turn off the computer and providing a bunch of parameters to convey a certain message.

/s means shutdown

/t 10 means shutdown after a timeout of 10 seconds

/c is a syntax for comments which is displayed before shut down

Note: As this task changes the state of the PC, it requires Admin permission. So to grant it, click on the “Actions” menu and grant “Push2Run Administrator Privilege”. 

What More Can We Do?

Well, in the above examples, I have shown you how to interact with browsers and system applications. But there is a lot more to learn about other syntax and third-party applications. For example, you can set the volume with a voice command, play/pause videos in the VLC player, update your shopping list in a Notepad and more. I have not even mentioned Batch and Powershell integration with Push2Run. It would take PC automation to even greater heights. In the coming days, I will be bringing more in-depth tutorials so that we can interact with every Windows component with just a voice command. As for now, the developer behind Push2Run has a couple of ready-made example cards which you can simply import to the app.

Control Your Windows PC with Google Assistant Like a Pro

So that was our deep dive into how we can control Windows computers with Google Assistant. The Push2Run app is simply phenomenal and has made the automation process much more seamless. So, if you like the application, consider donating the developer here. Anyway, that is all from us. If you learned new things from the article and want to see similar tutorials in the future, do comment down below and let us know. And if you are facing any issue, let us know in the comment section.

Comments 19
  • Aditya Jain says:

    Is there anyway to do this with the new Google Assistant V2 on the IFTTT

  • cody a putnam says:

    doesnt work, i followed your tut, and when i get to the part when i say “hey google tell my computer to open calculator” the assistant just says “ok, heres what microsoft says about how to start the calculator” and then it gives me a link to a microsoft support page for calculator

  • anonymouse says:

    As AutoIt has been mentioned already, I’m using AutoHotkey with another of Rob Latour’s tools named ‘UDPRun’!

    That way you can run whatever Autohotkey script from an Android device with the press of a button. And if you want to create a ‘Stream Deck’-like interface/keyboard to handle various of such PC remote tasks, check out ‘Matric’ (Android) or ‘Touch Portal (Android/iOS).

    Amazon Echo users should have a look at the ‘TriggerCmd’ skill. It can run (guess what, Autohotkey scripts) and other stuff that you can configure directly online at its homepage/portal.

    Have phun.

  • Thomas says:

    It’s not working. Google assistant can understand me and gives me the right response. And i can manually run the command from push2run. Howewer when i try to use commands as intended (voice command) windows is just not reacting. Assistance gives response and then it’s just nothing on windows.

  • Abhsihek says:

    Which is the command for turning on my pc in Push2Run?

  • Philippe says:

    It’s seem very good, all actions in IFTTT and PushBullet are good, but Actions do not run on my PC ?

  • Shivam Yadav says:

    You missed an important step. In step 8 after clicking on ‘then that’ there are two input fields – ‘title’ and ‘message’.
    In message we don’t have to type ‘TextField’ instead click on ‘Add Ingredient’ and select ‘TextField’ from there.

  • BF says:

    Push2Run url is wrong, it takes your readers to the IFTTT website.

  • Frank says:

    It seems like a rather a long winded way of doing things involving several services, though I appreciate the post as there doesn’t seem to be anything easier. I am quite surprised that google hasn’t simply made a google home app for Windows 10 to make things easier, I guess they are too much for pushing their own OS. I will hold off for now as I prefer a more simplified approach and hopefully google will get up off it’s backside and provide one in the future, if only to stick two fingers up to Cortana. WD on the detailed post anyway. 😉

  • Erhan says:

    Nice post… Thanks..

  • Tran Phuong Anh PHAM says:

    I’m stuck with step #8 of the 1st action, where is “push a note”?

  • Somu Verma says:

    IFTTT not giving command to Push Bullets in Mobile

  • Sam says:

    It’s not working …my commands are going but my of is not responding to them.

    • SK says:

      same

  • Rich S says:

    Rather a convoluted way to accomplish a simple task.

    I’ve been using voice control with Windows since Windows 95 using an add-on sound card with up to 256 commands.

    I’ve used Logitech Easy Call Keyboards with Windows 7 – 10 using Windows built in voice command and Autoit.
    Voice calls using Skype and Yahoo Messenger by keyboard or voice control.

    Home automation has been controlled through X10 devices including the Smarthome app and power line / wireless adapter which stores, then schedules and senses and activates everything including lighting, heating, air conditioning, coffee makers and the security / surveillance system for more than 25 years.

    It’s now integrated with IFTTT on Windows, Linux and Alexa running on all of my Android devices and Echos using the routines or voice with commercially available devices or the IFTTT “skill”.
    Since I like my privacy I don’t use anything Google as the company has proven that it cannot be trusted.

    It’s nice you’re discovering the automation that can be done with computing systems and if you want to learn more do a search for home automation forums as there are several good ones on the internet

  • Yokesh kanna. C says:

    I was wondering Just this and BOOM!! There’s already a full fledged tutorial from Beebom! You guys are the best

  • ttrshhrsthr says:

    why the fuck does push 2 run keep turning on and off? I don’t know what to do

  • Jjddjek says:

    Why don’t you upload a video on this topic
    Plsssss

  • Max Power says:

    This was incredibly helpful. Iv’e been trying to do this for months, but couldn’t find any way to bridge the gap between the two, without complicated tasker scripts and similar.

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