You can quickly reset Quick Access pinned folders in Windows 10 File Explorer. We will review two methods that you can use to reset and clear the Quick Access folder state. This can be useful if you have pinned plenty of the folders, and now wants to reset them all with one go.Quick Access is the default folder location File Explorer in Windows 10 opens to. It automatically collects and displays files you recently open and frequently visited folders. With these features, Quick Access replaces both "recent files" and "favorites" options that no longer available in Windows 10 File Explorer.
Additionally, you can manually pin folders to the Quick Access folder. Pinned folders appear with a Pin overlay icon. See the following screenshot.
You will see pinned folders in the Frequent folders section of Quick access and in the navigation pane on the left of File Explorer. Also, 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 reset the directories pinned to the Quick Access location in Windows 10 File Explorer.
Note: the operation will unpin the folders you manually pinned to Quick Access. The default folders will remain pinned to Quick access.
How to Reset Quick Access Pinned Folders in Windows 10
- Open File Explorer.
- Navigate to the following folder
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations(paste this location into the address bar). - Locate the
f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-msfile under the AutomaticDestinations folder.
- Delete that file. Select it in the file list and press the Delete key.
- Now close the open Explorer windows.
- Open a new File Explorer window. You will find that all the folders that you manually pinned are gone.
You are done.
Alternatively, you can do the same in the command prompt. Here is how it can be done.
Reset and Clear Quick Access Pinned Folders in Command Prompt
- Close all open File Explorer windows.
- Open a new command prompt.
- Type the following command:
del /f /q "%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms".
- Once you delete the file, all the folders under Quick Access will disappear.
That's it.
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Why did they have to change this away from the .lnk files in the “Links” folder, that was so much better.
What if i never pinned a folder to quick access?
Migrated from Office 2016 to Office 365. The Quick Access Pinned Folders in Office 365 is randomly changing the pinned & recent folders in the Office icons on the Task Bar to older pinned & recent items. I found several of the files in the folder (automaticDestinations-ms). How do I find the one file that I want to keep & get rid of the others that keep taking over?
Thank you so much, I have scoured Google and after weeks I found your help was the only one that worked.
Exactly what I needed to do. I dont know how I got all that crap in quick access but thanks to you its all gone.