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A new Universal File Explorer app for Windows 10 is in development

File Explorer, formerly known as Windows Explorer in earlier Windows versions, is the default file management application in Windows for a long time. It has evolved a lot over time to acquire many different features for file management. Windows 10 ships with mostly the same version of Explorer as Windows 8 except for a few changes like Quick Access replacing Favorites. It looks like Microsoft is making a new "File Explorer" app, which will be a universal app like Photos, Cortana or Groove.

The application can inherit existing functionality of the Xbox app which looks as follows:

Windows 10 uwp file explorerUsing this app, the user will be able to perform all the basic file tasks which are currently available in File Explorer. Operations like move, delete, share, select and copy items, set their properties will be supported by the upcoming app. It also includes the ability to switch to various views for files and folders the way the classic File Explorer app allows in Windows 10.

The application will respect the white or dark theme option depending on your system preferences.

The app is not publicly available for download. It also wasn't officially announced. However in the near past, Peter Skillman, GM of Core UX for Windows Desktop revealed that they were working on a major update to File Explorer that can be used on touch devices. Unfortunately, he has not shared exact dates when we will see these changes in Insider builds or in the stable branch. (via).

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

11 thoughts on “A new Universal File Explorer app for Windows 10 is in development”

          1. Only problem is that it’s a shareware. Unless the betas are free, I won’t be able to afford it.

  1. I also feel like the control panel is finally going to be killed as it was based on the older file explorer (explorer.exe)

  2. After the new UWP File Explorer and the win32 Control Panel is gone, Windows 10 becomes an OS purely optimize for touch devices IMO and not suitable for traditional keyboard/mouse users anymore. I’m very sad since I like Windows in the past but I wish Linux will step up and improve and ready within 10 years to be a competitive alternate to Windows.

  3. It better have drag and drop support (Many UWP apps, including Skype do not support it). File Explorer is the one app MS cannot afford to mess up. NO feature whatsoever that’s available in Win32 should be missing. That includes 3rd party context menu additions too.

    Also once done it should be ported to W10M, as the current File Explorer on phones is a huge disappointment.

  4. The File Explorer that was the least buggy was in build 9870 and earlier (including Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 RTM). When 9926 was released, that’s when Windows 10 became more buggy including File Explorer. I feel like that this new UWP File Explorer will be even buggier than the future-depreciated Win32 version.

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