File Explorer status bar hides drive or folder with focus

druekberg · Aug 22, 2023

I've been battling with this somewhat minor but annoying issue since I got Windows 11 several months ago.

When I click on a drive or folder under Home in the Navigation Pane (left side of window), the focus jumps to the actual drive further down the pane, but the drive is hidden behind the status bar. I have to scroll down to see it so I can click to open its contents. Either that, or double click on it in the File and Folder pane (right side). I'd like to be able to just click once to open the drive.

Video clip here. In this case, I'm clicking on a Google Drive folder. (Sorry for the ugly redactions; had to figure out how to use ClipChamp on the run.)

Running an ASUS ZenBook. Display is set at recommended settings (125% scale, 1920x1080) but this happens even when I change the display settings, and also happens on my external monitor.

ZERO269 · Aug 22, 2023

That appears to be standard behavior when selecting something in the Quick Access list.

I'm not sure Windows will be able to discern the difference between selecting My Drive from under the Quick Access or the My Drive located under the one labeled with your Name. They are the same location.

The only time I've seen the Left Pane switch focus is when I choose something in the Right Pane that takes me somewhere else. For example, I select This PC (left) and open my D Drive (right) the focus (left) will switch to the D Drive.

Try opening a folder in your My Drive and see if the focus on the left changes; I suspect it will.

ZERO269 · Aug 22, 2023

@druekberg

I just remembered there was an auto expand setting with File Explorer. I don't use, so I kinda forgot about it.

Here's a Guide on this forum that may help with your situation:

Turn On or Off Expand Folder in Navigation Pane of File Explorer in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off automatically expand to current folder in the navigation pane of File Explorer for your account in Windows 11. The navigation pane is the far left pane in File Explorer used to find files, folders, and drives on your PC or network. When you...

www.elevenforum.com

I tested Option 1 and it did the trick for my quick test, so I think this is exactly what you are looking for.

druekberg · Aug 22, 2023

Thanks for the tip ZERO269, but that didn't help. Mine was already set to Expand Folders. I also tried unchecking Compact View, but that didn't help either, just put giant spaces between items. The folder with the focus still gets bumped to the bottom of the pane, behind the status bar.

johnlgalt · Aug 22, 2023

Try turning off the statusbar in Folder options, then doing it, and then turning it on, and then doing it again.

It seems to put it now at the bottom of the nav pane instead of scrolling off the bottom edge behind the statusbar for me.

druekberg · Aug 23, 2023

ZERO269 said:
That appears to be standard behavior when selecting something in the Quick Access list.

I'm not sure Windows will be able to discern the difference between selecting My Drive from under the Quick Access or the My Drive located under the one labeled with your Name. They are the same location.

The only time I've seen the Left Pane switch focus is when I choose something in the Right Pane that takes me somewhere else. For example, I select This PC (left) and open my D Drive (right) the focus (left) will switch to the D Drive.

Try opening a folder in your My Drive and see if the focus on the left changes; I suspect it will.

Yes, when I select something in the right pane by double-clicking, the focus in the left pane switches to that folder/drive, but also puts it at the bottom of the screen, half out of view.

druekberg · Aug 23, 2023

johnlgalt said:
Try turning off the statusbar in Folder options, then doing it, and then turning it on, and then doing it again.

It seems to put it now at the bottom of the nav pane instead of scrolling off the bottom edge behind the statusbar for me.

Interesting idea, but it didn't work. However, it did reveal what the real problem is: with the status bar off, the focus drive/folder is still mostly hidden under the bottom of the window. Something is screwy with the window sizing. Maybe there's a setting in the NVIDIA dashboard?

For kicks I changed the display setting to 100% (125% is recommended). The problem went away. But the type is so tiny it's hard to read, and I'm old and myopic. I guess I will live with this inconvenience, or try to track down a window-sizing setting, rather than going more blind.

Thanks for the brilliant lead anyway.

druekberg · Aug 23, 2023

Okay, here's my workaround which so far I can live with:

In Display Settings, change display scale to 100%.
Click the arrow next to display scale to enter custom scaling panel.
Under "Related settings" click arrow at end of Text Size row.
Increase Text Size two notches so it's more or less the same size as at 125%, so I can read it. Solves the problem of the drive/folder being hidden below the bottom of the window, and so far File Explorer, Chrome, Word, and other important apps look like they should.

Thanks for your suggestions guys, which helped me get to this point. If there's a real solution I'd love to know.

johnlgalt · Aug 23, 2023

~~Ahh, then you could try to increase only the fonts instead of the actual DPI scaling.~~

LMFAO - I was just typing the same as I had opened this thread a couple of hours ago but never actually replied.

Yeah, that tends to work better in the long run, it's how I've set mine, and probably why mine fixed itself when I hid and showed the status bar.

Good sleuthing!

druekberg · Aug 29, 2023

It's not a perfect solution. Most text is readable, but some is still tiny, such as labels in Explorer windows (e.g. save dialogs). Wish there was some script I could run to scale the bottom of the window larger so the status bar didn't cover up text inside the window. Oh well.

johnlgalt · Sep 1, 2023

Yeah, Windows DPI scaling is not the best solution but it is the better solution to scale all things. The Text Scaling solution is less efficient because of exactly what you've discovered, it actually ignores some ares of text.

Have you perhaps tried combining the two, using custom values for both, to see if you can achieve better parity with your whole system?

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