navigation pane Archives

Add custom folders or Control Panel applets to Navigation Pane in File Explorer

The ability to customize the navigation pane area was what many users wanted in modern versions of Windows. Unfortunately, out of the box, Windows does not provide an easy way to change items visible on the left in File Explorer. With recent releases, Microsoft made possible to hide Favorites and Libraries, but it is still not possible to add custom items or remove items like This PC or Homegroup without using Registry hacks. Today, I would like to show how to change this and add custom folders or Control Panel applets to the Navigation Pane in File Explorer.

How to re-add Favorites to navigation pane of Windows 10 Explorer

In Windows 10, the good old Favorites folder was removed from the navigation pane in File Explorer. It was replaced by the new feature called Quick Access, which combines Favorites with Recent files and also shows frequently used folders. Here is how you can re-add Favorites to navigation pane of Windows 10 File Explorer.

Hide Removable Drives From Navigation Pane in Windows 10

With Windows 10, Microsoft added removable drives directly to the left pane of File Explorer called the "Navigation pane". This change is intended to speed up access to your flash drives and external drives as you don't need to expand the 'This PC' folder any more. However, some users might prefer the older behavior where all drives are grouped under 'Computer'/'This PC'. In that case, you would want to hide removable drives in the File Explorer's Navigation Pane in Windows 10. While Windows 10 does not offer any settings to hide removable drives, here is a simple Registry tweak which will allow you to do it.