Personalization Move Home to Top or Bottom of Navigation Pane in Windows 11

Good to know! Now...is there a way in W11 to collapse the Quick Access listing in the Navigation pane?

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galileo said:

Good to know! Now...is there a way in W11 to collapse the Quick Access listing in the Navigation pane?

Click to expand...

Currently, you could remove the Quick Access folders from the navigation pane by doing the following. Of course, Quick Access will also no longer show in Home afterwards either.

Uncheck Show frequently used folders.


Unpin all folders from Quick Access.

Not quite what I am looking for. I would like to be able to do what one could do in the navigation pane in W10 - i.e. collapsing the list of Quick Launch items. I do not want to remove them - merely collapse the list to provide more space in the nav pane until they are needed.

I gather that W11 no longer supports this ??? Unfortunately it appears that the "Home" feature is linked/tied to the list. Thus, meaning that removing an item from the Quick Access list also removes it from the "Home" listing. Definitely a step backwards from W10.

How to move Onedrive to Bottom of Navigation Pane in Windows 11 or how can quick access or favorites above the onedrive.. Thanks

rahulkmr said:

How to move Onedrive to Bottom of Navigation Pane in Windows 11 or how can quick access or favorites above the onedrive.. Thanks

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Hello,

I'm afraid OneDrive refused to move in the navigation pane.

Brink said:

Hello,

I'm afraid OneDrive refused to move in the navigation pane.

Click to expand...

Thanks for reply. Same here today i tried SortOrderIndex change in registry to different numbers but onedrive location does not change. In future if you will get any solution , kindly share me.. Thanks @Brink .

rahulkmr said:

Thanks for reply. Same here today i tried SortOrderIndex change in registry to different numbers but onedrive location does not change. In future if you will get any solution , kindly share me.. Thanks @Brink .

Click to expand...

Will do.

Brink said:

Hello,

I'm afraid OneDrive refused to move in the navigation pane.

Click to expand...

Hi Brink, I have a follow-up question related to selecting "Show all Folders" in the Navigation Pane.
Where in the Registry (I assume that's where it's determined) does windows 11 get the more descriptive names it uses for a folder? The names used in the Navigation Pane are different than the actual folder names.

An example would be for One Drive. It's called "OneDrive" in my C:\Users\Geobrick folder but it's called "Geobrick - Personal" in the Navigation Pane. Another example is my user folder which is named Geobrick under C:\Users but in the Navigation Pane it's named "Geo B" (which is the name associated with Microsoft account).

I'm not sure if these are considered friendlynames or displaynames or something else in the registry.

Another File Explorer detail I'd like to understand is why, sometimes, a full folder path will show up in the address bar (when you click the folder icon on the bar) and sometimes it's just the folder's more descriptive name with no detail on where that folder is? I'd really like to understand how that works. An example of this in my case is when I click "Home" on the Navigation Pane, I can see a list of Quick access folders on the right pane. The Folders that have "Stored locally" under their names don't show the full path in the address bar but all the others will. The "Stored locally" ones all seem to be Windows system folders like Music, Videos, Documents, and Desktop. However, If I select that same folder from my user folder, like in c:\users\geobrick\music, it's treated differently than when I select it from the quick access list. How/why does that happen and what in the registry determines that behavior?

I know these are a lot of detailed questions only loosely based on this tutorial so let me know if I should be posting this in a different place.

geobrick said:

Hi Brink, I have a follow-up question related to selecting "Show all Folders" in the Navigation Pane.
Where in the Registry (I assume that's where it's determined) does windows 11 get the more descriptive names it uses for a folder? The names used in the Navigation Pane are different than the actual folder names.

An example would be for One Drive. It's called "OneDrive" in my C:\Users\Geobrick folder but it's called "Geobrick - Personal" in the Navigation Pane. Another example is my user folder which is named Geobrick under C:\Users but in the Navigation Pane it's named "Geo B" (which is the name associated with Microsoft account).

I'm not sure if these are considered friendlynames or displaynames or something else in the registry.

Click to expand...

The names are specified in the GUID for that specific shell folder.

For example with OneDrive:

geobrick said:

Another File Explorer detail I'd like to understand is why, sometimes, a full folder path will show up in the address bar (when you click the folder icon on the bar) and sometimes it's just the folder's more descriptive name with no detail on where that folder is? I'd really like to understand how that works. An example of this in my case is when I click "Home" on the Navigation Pane, I can see a list of Quick access folders on the right pane. The Folders that have "Stored locally" under their names don't show the full path in the address bar but all the others will. The "Stored locally" ones all seem to be Windows system folders like Music, Videos, Documents, and Desktop. However, If I select that same folder from my user folder, like in c:\users\geobrick\music, it's treated differently than when I select it from the quick access list. How/why does that happen and what in the registry determines that behavior?

I know these are a lot of detailed questions only loosely based on this tutorial so let me know if I should be posting this in a different place.

Click to expand...

This will depend on if it's a folder or shell folder you have in the navigation pane. Shell folders will only show its name in the address bar.

The usual personal folders you see in the navigation pane will be shell folders linked to the actual folder.

Thanks Brink. That's very informative and will help me understand what's going on under the hood of Windows File Explorer.
Now I can do some real damage to the registry.

rahulkmr said:

How to move Onedrive to Bottom of Navigation Pane in Windows 11 or how can quick access or favorites above the onedrive.. Thanks

Click to expand...

I managed to do it like this:
In registry editor navigate to \HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6} and then change the SortOrderIndex to 50

hi @Brink ,

any idea how to do this for windows 10?

on windows 10 it is the quick access folder. I am trying to move it to the bottom.

I tried adding your registry, but nothing happened. I also tried opening it in notepad, changing "@home" to "@Quick access" and still nothing happened.

please let me know,

asc

asc94 said:

hi @Brink ,

any idea how to do this for windows 10?

on windows 10 it is the quick access folder. I am trying to move it to the bottom.

I tried adding your registry, but nothing happened. I also tried opening it in notepad, changing "@home" to "@Quick access" and still nothing happened.

please let me know,

asc

Click to expand...

Hello asc, and welcome.

I did some testing in Windows 10, and it appears "Quick access" doesn't support being moved in the navigation pane.

@Brink ,

Wow, thank you for the quick response.

That is unfortunate.

The idea of moving it to the bottom was that at least then I could click on it easier without having to scroll all the way to the top of the navigation pane every time (past my long list of pinned folders which is tedious)

However, what I am really trying to do is change the default location any "open file" dialog opens to. For example I have a company webpage that I upload files to frequently.

I want it to open to quick access so that I can see recent files. Currently, it appears that it opens to the most recently accessed folder in file explorer (See attachment).

Perhaps you could shed some light on this particular route.

cheers,
asc

Attach files

asc94 said:

@Brink ,

Wow, thank you for the quick response.

That is unfortunate.

The idea of moving it to the bottom was that at least then I could click on it easier without having to scroll all the way to the top of the navigation pane every time (past my long list of pinned folders which is tedious)

However, what I am really trying to do is change the default location any "open file" dialog opens to. For example I have a company webpage that I upload files to frequently.

I want it to open to quick access so that I can see recent files. Currently, it appears that it opens to the most recently accessed folder in file explorer (See attachment).

Perhaps you could shed some light on this particular route.

cheers,
asc

Attach files

Click to expand...

Usually, it's always the last accessed location.

Brink said:

Usually, it's always the last accessed location.

Click to expand...

That's a bummer. I wish it was changeable. It would save me a few seconds every time I browse to open a file. Thanks for your input.

asc94 said:

That's a bummer. I wish it was changeable. It would save me a few seconds every time I browse to open a file. Thanks for your input.

Click to expand...

My workaround for now is to just always keep quick access collapsed on the navigation pane. Then at least I can more easily click on it and then see my pinned folders and recent files all in one view without scrolling all the way up past my pinned folders in the navigation pane.

@Brink: Is there a way in Win11 to "collapse" the "Home" menu analogous to collapsing the "QuickAccess" menu/folder in Win10? The "Home" menu listing in the nav pane can take up considerable vertical space.