How to Use Windows 10 Quick Access: A Full Introduction

What Is Quick Access?

Quick access is a new feature that is first introduced in Windows 10. It is similar to the old Favorites section in the old Windows versions. You can find it after accessing File Explorer.

You can pin your favorite folders to Windows 10 Quick access. The recently-accessed files and frequently-accessed folders can also be shown in Windows 10 Quick access.

If you accidentally delete files or folders from your computer, you can use professional data recovery software to get them back.

Now, we will show you how to use Windows 10 Quick access.

How to Add a Folder to Quick Access?

It is very easy to add a folder to Windows 10 Quick access. You need to use steps:

1. Go to File Explorer to find the folder you want to pin to Quick access.
2. Select the folder and right-click on it.
3. Select Pin to Quick Access from the popup menu.

The selected folder will be added to Quick access.

Additionally, you can also directly drag and drop the target folder to the Quick access bar.

How to Remove a Folder from Quick Access?

When you don’t want a folder to be displayed in Windows 10 Quick access, you can just remove it from that section.

Here is a step-by-step guide:

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Right-click the folder in Windows 10 Quick access.
3. Select Unpin from Quick access.

Then, the folder is removed from Quick access.

Remove Recently-used Files and Frequently-used Folders from Quick Access

The File Explorer Quick access in Windows 10 can also show the recently-used files and frequently-used folders. But, if you don’t want to see them there, you can remove them via some settings.

Here is what you can do:

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Go to View > Options > Change folder and search options.
3. Under the General section, uncheck Show recently used files in Quick access and Show frequently used folders in Quick access in Privacy.
4. Press Clear to guarantee that all traces of recently used files and frequently accessed folders are removed.
5. Click Apply and OK to save the changes.

If you only want to remove certain files and folders from Quick access, you can right-click the files or folders in Quick access and then select Remove from Quick access.

Change How File Explorer Opens

By default, when you open File Explorer, you will enter Quick access directly and see everything in it. But, it is not the mode that you can’t change. You can also set your computer to open File Explorer to This PC.

This guide tells you how to do this work:

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Go to View > Options > Change folder and search options.
3. Click the arrow down button that is next to Open File Explorer to and then select This PC from the drop-down list.
4. Click Apply and OK to keep the changes.

After these steps, when you open File Explorer, you will see the things in This PC directly.

Sometimes, you may find that the Windows 10 Quick access is not working. You can refer to this post to fix the issue: How to Fix Windows 10 Quick Access Not Working?