Here's how to Backup Quick Access Folders in Windows 10 and restore them later. The Quick Access location is a new option in File Explorer of Windows 10. It opens to that folder by default. It collects recent files and frequently visited folders so you can quickly access them with a couple of clicks. Also, you can manually pin your favorite folders to that location.
Quick Access always shows these pinned locations regardless of how rarely you visit them. Actually, Frequent folders is an extra view of what File Explorer was showing in jump lists in Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Pinned folders will appear visible under the Frequent folders section in the Quick access folder in File Explorer. Also, they will be visible under the Quick access icon in the navigation pane on the left of File Explorer. Additionally, these folders will be pinned in the jump list of the File Explorer icon on the taskbar and Start menu.
This post will show you how to backup and restore Quick access folders in Windows 10.
How to Backup Quick Access Folders in Windows 10
- Open File Explorer.
- Click in the address bar, or press Ctrl + L, and type the following in the address bar:
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations.
- Copy all the files you see to some other folder where you plan to store your backup.
- You can now close the File Explorer app.
You are done.
Tip: The mentioned location contains plenty of automaticDestinations-ms files. One of the files, named f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms, contains folders you have pinned to Quick Access. If you want to backup only pinned folders, you can copy only that file.
How to Restore Quick Access Folders
- Open File Explorer.
- Navigate to the following folder
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations(paste this location into the address bar). - Copy and paste the files backed up earlier into the AutomaticDestinations folder you opened.
- Close all File Explorer windows.
- Open a new Explorer window to see the change.
You are done.
Now check out how to Rename Quick Access pinned folders in Windows 10.
That's it.
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I do not have computer 83857 02-270A/02/G04/D2147… I have E826514
Should this work for Windows 11? I have tried copying over just the file named f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms to get the pinned ones, but it gets renamed to “f01b4d95cf55d32a – Copy.automaticDestinations-ms”
Even if i try via the command line to overwrite the file, it gets set back to blank when i restart Explorer..
I don’t think that it should work in Windows 11.
Came in from Google and found exactly what I needed, thank you!!
Thanks for helpful Article! :))