File Explorer
CUSTOMISE FOLDER BEHAVIOUR
Windows can be instructed to treat folders in a specific way depending on the contents inside. Right-click a folder and choose Properties > Customise where you can optimise it for a specific file type, such as pictures or documents.
CHANGE THE FOLDER ICON
You’ll also see an option to change the folder icon – useful if you want a more visual prompt as to the folder’s contents. Click ‘Change Icon…’ to browse files for any icons they contain (shell32.dll is selected by default with lots of options). You can also select previously created or downloaded icon (ICO) files – see the step-by-step guide on the page opposite for a way to extract icons from other files.
Alternatively, click ‘Choose File…’ to choose a picture to display instead – this is perfect for photo folders where you’d rather focus on one of the photos inside rather than have Windows display several of them at once.
SET UP INDIVIDUAL FOLDER VIEWS
Windows also remembers any individual customisations that you perform on a folder, so after opening it switch to the View tab on the File Explorer’s Ribbon where you can experiment with the Layout and Current View sections to apply settings that will remain specific to that folder when reopened.
ADJUST ICON SPACING
Further tweaks can be performed using Winaero Tweaker – navigate to the
Advanced Appearance Settings > Icons section where you can adjust the horizontal and vertical spacing of icons in both File Explorer and on the desktop, plus change the default font used to display names.
TWEAK FILE EXPLORER PANES
File Explorer displays two panes – Navigation and Details – by default, but you can also add a Preview pane via the Ribbon’s View tab, plus restore Libraries to the Navigation pane by clicking it and choosing Show Libraries.
SET UP QUICK ACCESS
The Quick Access section of the Navigation pane is File Explorer’s best feature, bar none. You can drag frequently accessed folders into here to pin them for one-click access from any File Explorer location. You can also click and drag existing entries to rearrange their running order, or right-click to unpin them.
CLEAN THE NAVIGATION PANE
The Navigation pane can get cluttered with lots of entries you don’t use. The simplest way to review and remove these is to open up Winaero Tweaker to File Explorer > ‘Navigation Pane – Default Items’. Want to add your own links? Select ‘Navigation Pane – Custom Items’ to do so.
CUSTOMISE NAV PANE ITEMS
You can rename the Quick Access, Libraries and This PC icons in the Navigation pane via Winaero Tweaker’s File Explorer section, too. You can also change their icons in the same way that you edit any folder icon.
CUSTOMISE THE THIS PC VIEW
Given that most of us open File Explorer to This PC by default, it helps if you can tailor it to your exact needs. Fire up Ultimate Windows Tweaker and navigate to the Customization > This PC option where you can decide which user folders should be displayed, as well as adding various useful system shortcuts at the same time.
ADD TABS TO FILE EXPLORER
Your web browser has tabs to reduce window clutter, so why not File Explorer? We’ve been using QTTabBar ( http://qttabbar.wikidot.
com/) for the best part of a year to do just that: once installed, tabs appear beneath the Ribbon
– click ‘+’ to browse for a new tab or press Ctrl-n to duplicate the current tab.
NAVIGATE SUBFOLDERS QUICKLY
There’s another fringe benefit to using QTTabBar – after installation, roll your mouse over a folder icon and click the drop-down arrow that appears over it to drill down through the folder’s contents using a series of drop-down menus.
POP-UP FILE PREVIEWS
QTTabBar also enables you to ditch the preview bar; instead, roll your mouse over a supported file type and after a short pause a pop-up preview will appear. You can configure the size of the thumbnail (and other
QTTabBar options) by right-clicking an empty space on its tab bar in File Explorer and choosing QTTabBar Options – look under Preview > Windowing.
CUSTOMISE CONTEXT MENUS
The right-click menu is a handy place to stash useful – if not frequently needed – tools. You can add numerous entries to this using Winaero Tweaker’s Context Menu section – you can access the new Clipboard History feature, for example, or restore access to classic appearance options in Windows 10 (see Personalization). It also contains system tools that enable you to do things like claim ownership of a folder or reset its permissions to the default.
CLEAN OUT THE CONTEXT MENU
Select ‘Remove Default Entries’ in Winaero Tweaker to clear out unused entries added by Windows, such as BitLocker entries. Most clutter, however, comes from third-party tools.
If you can’t find options to remove them within those programs, use a tool such as ShellMenuView ( www.nirsoft.net/utils/
shell_menu_view.html) to review and remove unwanted entries. Doing so can be a little daunting, but ShellMenuView is comprehensive and all its options are grouped by app, making them easier to detect and
– if necessary – remove in bulk.