As you may already know, the Send To context menu of File Explorer in Windows 10 contains various items by default such as Desktop, Bluetooth, Mail and so on. You might have noticed that some applications are able to extend the Send To menu with their own shortcuts. For example, Skype places its icon into the Send To menu. Let's see how to put your own custom items like app shortcuts and folders inside the Send To menu so you can copy or move them to the destination folder quickly.
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Out of the box, Windows 10 does not offer you special tools to customize the Send To menu. However, it is just a folder inside your profile. You can open it and play with its contents directly.
How to add custom items to the Send To menu in Windows 10
First, we need to open the folder where Send To stores its items. The best way to do it is to use the special shell location command.
- Press Win + R shortcut keys together on your keyboard to open the Run dialog. Tip: See the ultimate list of all Windows keyboard shortcuts with Win keys).
- Type the following in the Run box:
shell:sendto
The text above is a shell command. Read the following articles for details: - Press Enter. The Send To folder will open in File Explorer.
Here, you can copy shortcuts for your favorite apps to open the files you want in those apps without changing system file associations.
Add a program to the Send to menu
For example, I simply put a shortcut to Notepad.exe file to the Send To folder, so I can open any plain text file with Notepad by right clicking it and using the Send To menu. This is very useful.
You can create here a new shortcut to an app you have or copy it directly from the Start menu.
To add a new app shortcut to the Send to menu,
- Right-click the empty space in the File Explorer window and select New - Shortcut in the context menu.
- In the next dialog, type or paste the location of the executable file of your app:
- Type some useful name for your new shortcut.
- Click Finish. It will appear in the Send To menu:
Alternatively, you can create a shortcut using drag-and-drop.
- Open the Send To folder in File Explorer.
- Open another File Explorer window with a target app you want to put in the Send to menu.
- Press and hold the Alt key and drag the executable file to create a shortcut.
Also, you can copy shortcuts to your most used folders there. Then you can send files to those folders with just one click.
Add a custom folder to the Send to menu
The sequence is the same as described above.
- Right-click the empty space in the File Explorer window and select New - Shortcut in the context menu.
- In the next dialog, type or paste the path to the folder that you want to add to the Send to menu.
- Name your new shortcut with some useful name.
Again, you can use drag-and-drop with the Alt key held down to create a new folder shortcut.
Tip: This trick can be used to add the Quick Launch folder to the Send to menu.
This is a very nice and native way to boost your productivity in File Explorer. It can save you the trouble of navigating hierarchies of folders to paste the item.
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There are two more ways:
method 1:
1. pin copy to or move to from ribbon to quick access toolbar
2. select any file and press alt + 0-9
3. use down arrow keys to move to that particular folder
method 2:
1. select any file
2. press alt, H or CF to highlight move to or copy to
3. now use drop down menu to select desired folder and move/copy the file
PS:
one can pin empty recycle bin button on quick access tool bar too, very convenient
Yep, definitely: How to pin Recycle Bin to Quick Access in Windows 10
no, I meant something else for recycle bin. It does not need any hack.
When you open recycle bin it has button empty recycle bin completely, I was talking about pinning that empty recycle bin to quick access toolbar, instead of recycle bin itself. Whenever I realize that recycle bin is full, I press alt+4 to empty recycle bin. I know shift+del shortcut too.
Helps to have a shortcut to “SendTo” folder in the Send To folder itself. That way it’s easy to add app shortcuts directly.
I have created a folder shortcut to send to menu, but when i send files it always copies the files to the folder even the file and the folder in send to menu are in same directory unless i hold an additional button to move or create a shortcut. Can i make it to always move to the folder?
Can it be done?
yes, it can be done with a wokraround using a batch file. to do this, follow these steps:
open notepad then type without the quotes “move %1 C:\Example\Destination\Here” and replace example destination with the path of the folder where you want to put the items. then, click file > save as, and name the file YourDestination.bat and make sure to select in the Save as Type field below the file name All Files (*.*) NOT *.txt. put this file in the shell:SendTo folder and it will move the items instead of copying.
if you want, you can instead put this .bat file in say your documents folder, create a shortcut to -that-, and you can change the icon of that shortcut to be a folder, put that in your shell:sendto instead, but you dont need to do that