General Enable or Disable Show Recommended Section in File Explorer Home in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off showing the Recommended section instead of Quick access in File Explorer Home for your account in Windows 11.

Home in the navigation pane of File Explorer allows you to quickly access and view your pinned locations, frequent folders, and recent files from one location in the sections below:

• Quick access = Displays up to 13 folders that you pinned or frequently opened on the system.
• Favorites = Pinned files.
• Recent (Recent files) = Displays up to 25 files that you most recently opened.

Starting with Windows 11 build 26100.7309 (24H2), build 26200.7309 (25H2), and build 28000.1643 (26H1), the Recommended section in File Explorer now makes it easier to access files you frequently use or recently downloaded. To view this section on the homepage, turn on the Show Recommended section setting in File Explorer > Options. This feature is now available to all users, including those signed in with personal Microsoft accounts.

Starting with build 26100.5074 (24H2), when you're signed in with a work or school account (Entra ID), File Explorer will display people icons in the Activity column and the Recommended section at the top of File Explorer Home. Hover over or select a person's icon to open their Microsoft 365 Live Persona Card, which shows who they are and how they're connected to the file.



Starting with Windows 11 build 26220.7523 (Dev and Beta), for Windows Insiders signed in with a Microsoft account (consumer cloud), File Explorer will now begin showing people icons under the “Activity” column on File Explorer Home and in areas like Recommended, Favorites, and Recent. When you hover or click on a people icon, File Explorer will display the new Windows People Card (WPC), giving you lightweight context about who recently interacted with the file and providing quick actions like starting a chat or a call through your preferred communication apps. This brings the people context experience—previously available only for work and school (Entra ID) files via the Live Persona Card (LPC)—to consumer cloud files as well, enabling a more consistent and intuitive collaboration experience across File Explorer. This is an update to the originally released feature which was previously documented in the Dev and Beta channels August 2025.

When you turn on Show recommended section in File Explorer > Home, it will replace the Quick access section.





EXAMPLE: Show Recommended section in File Explorer Home turned on and off







1 Open Folder Options.

2 Do step 3 (on) or step 4 (off) below for what you want.

This is the default setting.

1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you want.

This is the default setting.

(Contents of REG file for reference)







(Contents of REG file for reference)


4 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5 If you have Smart App Control turned on, you will need to unblock the downloaded REG file.

6 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

7 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

8 If File Explorer is currently open, then either refresh (F5) or close and reopen File Explorer to apply.

9 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.


That's it,
Shawn Brink