Windows – Is it possible to remove folders from Windows explorer navigation pane

windows 10windows-explorerwindows-registry

Example here

Is it possible to remove certain folders from that menu? I never store anything in the documents or downloads or music or pictures or videos folders. The only one I need there is desktop. Is there a way to get rid of the other folders from showing?

Best Answer

-EDIT- I missed half of step 1. This should work now.

Yes you can, but it is not as easy as bigfr0g thinks. Follow these steps for each entry you wish to hide.

Press Win+R and type "regedit" to enter the Registry Editor.
Then paste: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions{THIS CHANGES DEPENDING ON FOLDER}\PropertyBag into the navigation bar.
You will arrive at a folder with several files. If you see a file called "ThisPCPolicy" Skip to step #6.
If there is no file, right-click the blank area of the folder. Hover over "New" and hit "String Value".
Name the string "ThisPCPolicy" and set it to a value of "Hide" Now skip to Step #7.
Open the file and set it to a value of "Hide"
Exit out of Registry Editor and make sure File Explorer is not open.
Open File Explorer and it should be gone. If it's not, try closing and opening File Explorer one more time.

In place of "THIS CHANGES DEPENDING ON FOLDER" add the corresponding IDs, whichever you want to hide.

Documents Folder: f42ee2d3-909f-4907-8871-4c22fc0bf756

Pictures Folder: 0ddd015d-b06c-45d5-8c4c-f59713854639

Videos Folder: 35286a68-3c57-41a1-bbb1-0eae73d76c95

Downloads Folder: 7d83ee9b-2244-4e70-b1f5-5393042af1e4

Music Folder: a0c69a99-21c8-4671-8703-7934162fcf1d

Desktop Folder: B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641

Hope this helps. If you ever want them back, follow the same instructions, except set the value to "Show".

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Set your Folder Options to show hidden and system files. You'll then see a file called desktop.ini in each user folder. The one in Desktop contains this:

[.ShellClassInfo]
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IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-183

Other folders may have more entries, but they're not relevant here. The LocalizedResourceName line is what lets Windows know to display a translated folder name. You can change its value to a constant string, like so:

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Consider making a back-up of these desktop.ini files in case you want to put the localizable default back. You can also use a semicolon (;) to comment out lines in INI files.

Once you're done, log off and back on. (Restarting explorer.exe is not enough.) Your custom name will appear in Quick access, This PC, and every place that supports localized folder names.

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