Disable Quick access in Windows 10 File Explorer



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Quick Access is a new feature in the navigation area of Windows 10 File Explorer. In the Windows 8.1 Explorer navigation pane, you had favorites, but now Quick access seems to have replaced them. This feature is useful because it helps users quickly navigate to the places you use frequently and those you have recently used.

Windows 10 users may have noticed that the file explorer opens by default for Quick access. Windows 10 allows experienced users to customize the operating system according to their needs. It seems that a majority of user comments at Microsoft focus on users who have the choice to simply enable or disable various elements of the user interface. If you wish, you can open the file explorer for this PC instead of Quick access.

If you wish, you can also disable Quick access in the navigation area in one way or another in the interest of privacy. What you can do is prevent the Explorer from displaying the most recent and frequently used files and folders. Let’s see how it goes.

Disable Quick access – do not display folders

To disable Quick access functions, you can disable the display of files and folders recently and frequently used in the file explorer.

To delete the common folders and recent file list from Quick Access, open the File Explorer, click the Ribbon View tab, click Options, and then click Change Folder and Search Options to open the folder options.

You must check the following two boxes in the Confidentiality section :

  1. Show recently used files in Quick access
  2. Show frequently used folders in Quick access

Click Apply and Exit. The action immediately removes these two sections from the Quick access in the file explorer.

Clear Quick access history

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To clear your Quick access history, press button Clear against Clear file explorer history.

You can also remove pinned items such as desktop, downloads, etc. from the left side of the navigation pane.

This way, you can prevent Windows 10 from displaying the most recent and frequently used files and folders in Quick access, protecting your privacy.

See this article if Quick access under Windows 10 does not work or is broken.



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