File Explorer (23H2) (Archived)

File Explorer is the Windows 11 file management application, and it looks and works much like its predecessors in Windows 10 and earlier Windows versions.

But there have been some changes since Windows 10 and the initial release of Windows 11. In addition to its simpler new appearance, File Explorer now features a tabbed user interface similar to what’s found in Microsoft Edge and other web browsers, an updated home page with new customization choices, an updated navigation pane, a new Gallery view for your photo collection, a Details pane with file thumbnails and other contextual information, and more. So this chapter will focus largely on these new and improved features.

Access multiple file system views with tabs

The addition of a tabbed user interface is the most obvious change to File Explorer in Windows 11. As with the similar feature in web browsers and other apps, File Explorer tabs lets you manage multiple views, in this case of your PC’s file system, at the same time in the same window.

Create and close a tab

To create a new tab, select the “Add new tab” button (“+”) in File Explorer’s title bar. The new tab will automatically display the File Explorer home page, which is the Home view, by default.

You can also type CTRL + T to create a new tab.

To open a new tab to a specific location, right-click that location–in the navigation pane or elsewhere in File Explorer–and choose “Open in new tab.”

To close a tab, select its “Close tab” button (it resembles an “X”).

You can also type CTRL + W to close the currently selected tab.

Basic tab management

Each tab works like its own File Explorer window, so you can navigate to whatever file system location you like in each.

To navigate between tabs, simply select the tab you wish to display with the mouse. Or, type CTRL + TAB to switch to the next tab in the row. Or, type CTRL + SHIFT + TAB to switch to the previous tab.

To reorder the tabs, grab the tab you wish to move and then drag it left or right to a new location in the row of tabs. Release it when it’s where you want it.

Drag files between tabs

One of the many reasons you may have opened two File Explorer windows in the past was so that you could drag one or more files between two different locations in the file system. But the new tabs in File Explorer allow you to do so as well.

To get started, make sure you have at least two tabs open: one for the location that contains the file you wish to copy or move, and one that is navigated to the destination where you would like that file to go. Then, simply drag the file up to the row of tabs and over the tab representing the destination. Then, drag it down into the files area and release it.

Previously, you could drag files into the File Explorer address bar as well. But this no longer works in Windows 11 version 23H2: As noted later in the chapter, the File Explorer address bar has been modernized in this release, and that feature was left behind.

When you perform this operation normally, you will move the file from its original location, the source, to the destination. If you prefer to copy the file–leaving the original in its place and creating a duplicate in the destination–then right-drag the file instead. When you release it in the destination, a context menu will provide you with several choices, among them “Copy here.”

The above assumes you are copying or moving a file between two folders on the same drive. The rules change when you cross over to a second drive or a network location: In those cases, the default operation on a drag and drop is copy, not move. If you wish to move the file between drives, right-drag it and choose “Move here” from the context menu that appears.

Understand the File Explorer home page

As with Windows 10, the Windows 11 File Explorer defaults to a home page that doesn’t correspond to a file system location but instead presents a simpler and potentially more useful selection of frequently accessed folders and files. But there have been some changes since Windows 10, too.

First, the name of this home page has changed, from Quick access to Home. And second, where the Quick access view in Windows 10 provided two sections, Quick access (frequently-used folders) and Recent (the most recently used documents and other files), the Home view in Windows 11 adds a third section, Favorites. This section displays any documents or other files that you have marked as being a favorite, similar to how the Microsoft Edge web browser works with web pages.

To mark any file as a favorite, right-click it in File Explorer and choose “Add to Favorites” from the context menu that appears. Likewise, you can reverse this change by right-clicking it–in the Favorites section of the Home view in File Explorer or in its file system location–and choosing “Remove from Favorites.”

If you signed in to Windows with a Microsoft Work or School account, you will also see a fourth section in Home called Recommended that displays relevant thumbnail shortcuts from your organization.

You can customize the File Explorer home page to use This PC or OneDrive as its home page instead of Home. This is described below in Customize the File Explorer home page.

Access commonly used locations with the navigation pane

The Windows 11 navigation pane has been redesigned to focus less on the complexity of your PC’s file system and more on the folders and files you need to access regularly. As such, it provides three main sections from top-to-bottom, with Home and Gallery items in the top section, your Quick access folder locations in the middle, and two file system links–for This PC and Network–in the bottom by default.

There’s also a OneDrive item–named like Your name- Personal if you signed in to Windows with a Microsoft account–which can appear in the top or bottom section of the navigation bar. In fact, it seems to move around on its own sometimes. We can’t explain this.

The Quick access section duplicates the folder list you see in the Quick access section of the Home view. And it’s dynamic, so it will change as you use the PC. We discuss how you can customize this feature below in Customize Quick access.

Interact with the address bar

Microsoft has “modernized” the address bar in Windows 11 version 23H2, which means that it’s been rewritten from scratch and offers a few subtle new features. Unfortunately, the new address bar also introduces a notable functional regression, a feature that was present previously but is no longer available.

Let’s start with the new features: The File Explorer address bar now recognizes and visually identifies local folders–any folder that exists only on this PC–and cloud folders–any folder that is on this PC but also synced with OneDrive and thus available from anywhere–in distinct ways.

OneDrive identifies the type of folder you are viewing with an icon or button in the far left of the address bar. In a local folder view, you will see a non-interactive icon that usually looks like a computer display.

There are other local folder icons, too. For example, File Explorer’s Home view will display a home icon, and Gallery uses a unique photo gallery icon.

When viewing a cloud folder–again, any folder that is synced with OneDrive–you will see a button at the far left of the address bar with a distinctive blue cloud icon and accompanying OneDrive status text.

This button is also interactive: If you click it, a OneDrive flyout appears so you can quickly view your cloud storage usage and access two icons that open OneDrive on the web and OneDrive settings, respectively.

Microsoft also uses this feature to badger you into using OneDrive Folder Backup if you are not already doing so: When you view a folder that could be protected with Folder Backup–Desktop, Documents, Pictures, or any of their contained sub-folders–the address bar button will display a message nagging you to use Folder Backup.

Before moving on, we need to–wait for it–address a functional regression in File Explorer’s new address bar: It’s no longer possible to drag and drop files into the address bar, as was the case previously.

Don’t worry, you can still use drag and drop to copy or move files. But now you can only release dragged files in other areas of the File Explorer window, including the main files area or a folder or other location that’s pinned to Quick access in the navigation pane.

View your photo collection with the Gallery view

In Windows 11 version 23H2, File Explorer features a prominent new Gallery view, accessible via the top section of the navigation bar, that displays your photo collection using rich thumbnail images, with the most recent images at the top.

If this view looks familiar, that’s because it’s the same as the All Photos view in the Photos app. And for that reason, it may seem superfluous at first. But those who work with images a lot will find Gallery easier and quicker to use than Photos, and if you open an image from this view, it will still display in the Photo app’s lightweight photo viewer window by default.

Better still, Gallery appears in the standard File Open dialog, so it’s available in most apps too.

Configure where Gallery looks for your photos

By default, the Gallery photo collection is an aggregate of the photos and other images it finds in your local Pictures folder and your OneDrive Pictures folder. But you can configure which folder(s) it uses with the Gallery Locations dialog: Click the “Collection” command bar button, then select “Manage collection” in the menu that appears.

You can also use the “Collection” menu to toggle the display of images in individual folders. If you find this feature useful, consider adding often-used sub-folders like Screenshots, Camera roll, or similar to the locations that Gallery uses so that you can display just the contents of one of those folders as needed.

Add your phone photos to Gallery

If you are not using the OneDrive mobile app on your phone to back up its photos to Microsoft’s cloud storage service, they will not appear automatically in Gallery (or on your PC otherwise). For this reason, you will see a “Add your phone photos” button in the File Explorer command bar while browsing the Gallery.

If you click this button, your default web browser will open and navigate to the OneDrive mobile website, where you will find a QR code you can scan with your phone’s camera to get started.

Once you set up this feature on your phone, all of the photos it contains will be synced to a Camera roll folder in your OneDrive Pictures folder. And they will now appear in Gallery.

The “Add your phone photos” button is about as dumb as it can be: It appears even if you are backing up your phone photos to OneDrive.

Learn more about files with the Details pane

Microsoft added a new Details pane to File Explorer in Windows 11 version 23H2 that displays a thumbnail or icon, plus meta-data for whichever file is currently selected. The Details pane appears in the right side of the files area and is toggled on and off via a new button at the far right of the File Explorer command bar.

You can also type ALT + SHIFT + P to toggle the Details pane.

What you see in the Details pane will depend on the type of the selected file. There will be a thumbnail preview for image files, for example, while many other file types will simply display an icon.

The Details pane works with individual files only. It can’t display information about two or more files.

Below that, you will find a “Share” button that duplicates the “Share” button in File Explorer’s command bar, some selection of meta-data about the file that also varies by type, and a “Properties” button that opens the selected file’s property sheet, a legacy interface for displaying file information.

The Details pane is in many ways a modern replacement of sorts for the property sheet, though the latter provides a lot more information about each file.

Extract archive files

File Explorer has long offered integrated support for the ZIP archive file format via a feature called compressed folders. This feature lets users compress (“zip”) one or more files into a ZIP archive and extract (“unzip”) files from a ZIP archive. But it also simplifies the use of ZIP archives by allowing them to work like normal folders: You can open a ZIP archive like a folder, browse its contents, copy or move content to or from the archive, and perform other basic file operations.

In Windows 11 version 23H2, Microsoft extended compressed folders to support extracting other archive file formats. So you can now view and extract–but not create–archive TAR (.tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.zst, .tar.xz, .tgz, .tbz2, .tzst, and .txz), RAR (.rar), and 7-ZIP (.7z) archive file formats without needing to install a third-party app.

If you want to create archive files in non-ZIP formats, you still need to install a third-party app like 7-Zip or similar.

Customize File Explorer

While File Explorer will work well for most users without modification, power users and others may wish to customization how it works.

Customize the File Explorer home page

By default, File Explorer opens to the Home view, which displays your Quick access folders, favorite files, and recently-accessed files. But you can customize the home page so that it opens to This PC or OneDrive if you prefer.

To do so, select “See more” (“…”) in the File Explorer command bar and then select “Options” to display the Folder Options window.

In the default General tab, select “Open File Explorer to:” to display the choices.

Customize Quick access

By default, Quick access displays your Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders, but as you access other folders frequently, they will be added to Quick access automatically.

This behavior is also configured in Folder Options. You can find the relevant options in the Privacy section on the General tab and are all enabled by default:

Show recently used files. This option determines whether the Recent section in the Home view displays recently used files from your PC, in reverse order.

Show frequently used folders. This determines whether the Quick access view–in Home and in the navigation pane–dynamically changes to display folders you access frequently. If you don’t want Windows changing the folders that appear in Quick access–in your navigation pane and in the Home view–be sure to uncheck this option.

Show files from Office.com. This option determines whether recently used files from Office.com on the web are displayed, in reverse order, in the Recent section in the Home view.

Customize the navigation pane

You can also customize–to some degree–which items appear in the navigation pane.

To see most of what’s possible, right-click a blank area of the navigation pane. When you do, a context menu appears.

Some of these choices are obvious enough: you can remove the “This PC” and “Network” links, for example, though we strongly recommend not doing so. But the other three links require a bit of explanation.

Show libraries. This enables easy access to a legacy Windows feature called libraries, which are virtual folders that display views derived from the actual contents of multiple physical folders. For example, the Documents library might display the contents of your personal Documents folder plus the Documents folder in your OneDrive. This feature was deprecated because most users found it too complex, and unless you know you need this, we do not recommend enabling it here.

The new Gallery feature works like a library in that it, too, is a view derived from multiple locations in the file system.

Show all folders. You might assume that enabling this option would display a link called All folders, but that’s not what happens. Instead, it changes the navigation pane into a folder node-based view similar to the old File Manager application from legacy Windows versions. So in addition to not using the standard three navigation pane sections, it adds legacy file system nodes like Control Panel and Recycle Bin. We don’t recommend that most make this change, but it may appeal to certain old-timers.

Expand to current folder. When enabled, this option will cause the relevant link in the navigation pane to always expand to the location of the current folder or another view. For example, if you are displaying the contents of C:\Windows, the “This PC” link in the navigation pane will be expanded so that you can see the path–with “Local Disk (C:) and “Windows” nodes below it–to that location.

Put simply, we feel that most users are best served by the default navigation pane layout.

All of the navigation pane customization options are also available in Folder Options. Just navigate to the View tab and scroll down to the bottom of Advanced settings. There, you will find a section called Navigation pane.

Most of these options map to the options you see when you right-click an empty area of the navigation pane–“Expand to open folder” is the same as “Expand to current folder,” and so on–but one option, “Always show availability status,” is only available from this user interface. This is a OneDrive feature, and we discuss this option in the OneDrive chapter.