File Explorer Quick Access Hyperactivity

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Is there a way to prevent a whole drive or folder from ever appearing in the Quick Access area of Explorer?

I am emptying out top level folders, and reorganizing by separating stuff in deeper folders so I won’t have to look at it much … which just means my Quick Access gets populated with all the deep folders I’ve just created. Removing them one by one is a pain in the butt.

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Does this work for you ?

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/clear-windows-10-quick-access-history-file-explorer/

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Unfortunately it appears that there’s no API or documented process for this and questions to Microsoft about how to manipulate Quick Access (e.g. how to add to, remove from or prevent specific folders from appearing in the first place) appear to have been ignored.

In fact, this was the only Microsoft response I could find.

As a result, it seems the only way at present is to first ‘pin’ the folders you want to keep then use MartinM’s suggestion of clearing the Quick Access area.

PS – If you ever want a quick way of opening Quick Access, just do the following:

1. Right-click on a blank area of the desktop and choose New > Shortcut.
2. In the Create Shortcut dialog that appears, type (or, better, copy/paste) explorer shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6} for the location and click the Next button to continue.
3. Enter a name for the shortcut (like Quick Access) and click on the Finish button.
4. Right-click on the newly-created shortcut and choose Properties in the context menu.
5. In the Shortcut key: text area, enter a key or combo by pressing the key(s) themselves. For example, press the F2 button on the top row of your keyboard. When you’ve entered a shortcut key, click on the Apply then OK buttons. (Don’t use F1 or F5 as these are already used by Windows.)

Now the Quick Access folder will appear whenever you press the F2 function key (or whatever you set the key/combo to be).

Hope this helps…

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Rick Corbett: interesting that Quick Access is still “locked down”.

Rick’s suggestion is worth following up on (for anyone else following this thread). The reason is that it allows you to multi-select individual items to remove from Quick Access, rather than right-clicking and making the choice of the context menu.

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Rick’s suggestion is worth following up on (for anyone else following this thread). The reason is that it allows you to multi-select individual items to remove from Quick Access, rather than right-clicking and making the choice of the context menu.

If you don’t mind using AutoHotkey, it’s possible to automate the clearing of the Quick Access folder:

Code:

; Script to automate clearing Win 10’s File Explorer (Quick Access) history
Run, explorer shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6} ; Open File Explorer at Quick Access
WinWaitActive, File Explorer ; Wait until the Quick Access folder is open/active
Send, !f ; Send ALT+F to open the ‘File’ menu
Sleep 50 ; Short delay of half a second (100 = 1 second)
Send, !o ; Send ALT+o to open the ‘Folder Options’ menu
WinWaitActive, Folder Options ; Wait until the ‘Folder Options’ dialog is open/active
Send, !c ; Send ALT+c to ‘click’ the ‘Clear’ button
Sleep 50 ; Another short delay
Send, {Enter} ; Send a Return key to ‘click’ the ‘OK’ button and exit the ‘Folder Options’ dialog
WinClose, File Explorer ; Close the ‘Quick Access’ window
ExitApp ; Exit the script

Note: On each line, everything after the semicolon (; ) is a comment about what the preceding command does. Note also that I had to introduce 2 short delays because the script worked too quickly for the Folder Options dialog to keep up. I tested the script in quite a slow VM, so if you use it on a fast device you may need to increase each of the 2 delays.

Now that I know that the script works I could compile it to an executable, create a shortcut to it and change the shortcut’s properties so I could use another shortcut key, like in post #3.

Hope this helps…

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MartinM: that’s actually what I have been doing. It’s a pain.

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[bbearren]

For me, “Quick Access” is a solution without a problem. Over my couple of decades of Windows use, I have developed my own methods of accessing frequently used files/folder, and it still works quite well in Windows 10. Quick Access is just a pain.

How To Geek has a method to disable Quick Access which works, but I don’t even want to have Quick Access show up in File Explorer at all. TenForums has a method to remove Quick Access from File Explorer, and that’s what I used.

Both articles need to be read thoroughly all the way through. One caveat with removing Quick Access entirely from File Explorer is that it breaks drag-and-drop within File Explorer, but that’s easy enough to overcome just by using right-click and copy/paste. Drag-and-drop will still work everywhere else, and it will still work between two separate windows of File Explorer.

Both of these methods can be undone if you decide you’d rather not go that route. Also, with both methods, you should first open File Explorer and click on the View tab, click Options on the far right, then “Change folder and search options”. In the General tab click the dropdown beside “Open File Explorer to:” and select “This PC”. The default is to open to “Quick Access”, and if you remove Quick Access, File Explorer will return an error when you try to open it.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

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• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by bbearren.

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