Quick Access is a new feature in Windows 11/10 File Explorer navigation pane. In Windows 8.1 Explorer Navigation Pane, you had Favorites, but now Quick Access seems to have replaced it. This feature is useful, as it helps users quickly navigate to locations that are frequently used by you, as well those, which were recently used by you.
Windows users may have noticed that by default, File Explorer opens to Quick Access. Windows 11/10 allows power users to fine-tune the operating system to their liking, rather easily. It seems a majority of the user feedback to Microsoft centered around users demanding the choice to enable or disable different UI elements, easily. So if you wish, you can make Explorer open to This PC instead of Quick Access.
If you wish, in the interest of Privacy, you can also disable Quick Access in the Navigation Pane, in a way. What you can do is stop Explorer from displaying the recently and frequently used files and folders there. Let us see how to do it.
Disable Quick Access – Do not show folders
To disable Quick Access in File Explorer of Windows 11 or Windows 10:
- Launch Explorer
- Click open Folder Options from the Ribbon
- Locate Privacy under General tab
- Uncheck the two checkboxes that disable this feature.
- Show recently used files in Quick Access
- Show frequently used folders in Quick Access
- Click Apply and restart Explorer.
What you need to do is disable the showing of recently and frequently used files and folders in File Explorer.
To remove frequent folders and recent files list from Quick Access, open File Explorer, click on the View tab in Ribbon and then click on Options, and then and then Change folder and search options, to open Folder Options.
You’ll have to uncheck the following two check-boxes present under the Privacy section:
- Show recently used files in Quick Access
- Show frequently used folders in Quick Access
Click Apply and Exit. The action will instantly remove these two sections from Quick Access in File Explorer.
Clear Quick Access History in Explorer
To clear your Quick Access history press the Clear button against Clear File Explorer History.
You can also Unpin the pinned items like Desktop, Downloads, etc. from the left side of the navigation pane.
In this way, you can prevent Windows 11/10 from displaying the recently and frequently used files and folders, in Quick Access and hence maintain your privacy.
See this post if Quick Access is not working or broken.
What is the difference between Quick Access and This PC?
This PC and Quick Access are quite different in the way that This PC displays connected devices and drives. On the other hand, the Quick Access view provides access to frequently used folders and recently used files.
Why does Explorer open to Quick Access?
It’s meant to make it easier to access your recent work. Thus, it’s kept as the Default view of File Explorer in Windows 11. However, if you don’t use it, you can change this default setting.
every time I right click anything in my quick access list my explorer restarts fast and closes all open windows, I cannot seem to find any info in this anywhere!!! please someone help!!
I would definitely suggest you do a System Restore to a time before this started happening. This will not affect any of your personal files, and it may solve the problem.
We had a problem using file explorer and quick access: the never-ending “working on it” message whenever we tried to access our files. The system never even got to the state where we could use the options menu to disable Quick Access… We ran McAfee Virus and found nothing, but Malware Bytes turned up many infections and resolved the problem!
Our problems were caused by malware — and Malwarebytes took care of it. I’d advise anyone else having trouble to give this a try.
how can i remove quick access from the side bar of the file explorer completely? i did the steps above to set file explorer to open on this pc and to stop tracking recently/frequently used, but that annoying Quick Access section is still there in the side panel and I just want it gone completely
ok . . . but it is still there, occupying valuable real-estate, I want it and much other crap GONE.
I don’t have that because it happened more the n 10 days ago. Now what
Totally fixed my issue. Thanks!
Click View, Navigation pane and uncheck Navigation pane
You can access the folder options faster if you just right click on “Quick access” and select “Options” , instead of using the View Ribbon ….
This actually helped me more than the whole article! Thanks! (Nothing wrong with the article.. it was just a bit confusing. Right click “Quick Access” showed me the options and made sense.. now I could clear the history and make sure not to show me the recent files/folders anymore)