4 Ways To Access Files Quickly In Windows 10

There’s hardly ever 1 way to do anything. Accessing files quickly in windows is no exception to the rule. If you ever get tired of having to navigate to that frequently used file over and over this should help. Depending on your needs, use one of the methods below to make your workflow more efficient and save yourself some precious time and irritation.

There are some caveats to each one of these methods. They each serve slightly different purposes but can be used in more than one way. So depending on what you apply them to, they’ll have their pros and cons. Experiment with them all and go with what works best for you. If you know some shortcut methods, share ’em in the comments.

Drag any file or folder to the desktop for quick access and constant visual.

The desktop is your Windows dashboard for displaying and accessing many things quickly. For files and folders it links to the User’s ‘Desktop’ folder. located here:

C:\Users\**USER NAME**\Desktop

The contents of this user folder are displayed on your screens desktop. Any time you drop or add a file to the desktop, it’s being adding to this folder. And anything you put in this folder will be displayed on the dashboard or ‘desktop’ automatically.

Start Menu Links

Right-click any folder or application in Windows and select “Pin To Start” in the context menu. This drops a shortcut in the start menu’s right pane for easy access. In this example, I’ll be adding the ‘Articles’ folder to the Start Menu.

User files like jpg png mp3, etc are not allowed in the Windows start Menu. Only folders and apps.

Drag any file or folder to the desktop for quick access and constant visual.

The desktop is your Windows dashboard for displaying and accessing many things quickly. For files and folders it links to the User’s ‘Desktop’ folder. located here:

C:\Users\**USER NAME**\Desktop

Using The Quick Access Section in the Navigation Pane on the left side of the explorer.

1. Simply navigate to your desired folder. (Make sure you are INSIDE the folder you want to pin to Quick Access.)

2. In the navigation pane, right-click the quick access link. In the context menu select “Pin current folder to Quick Access”.

The current folder will be added as a Quick Access link.

Keep in mind this feature is provided by the Explorer app only. So if you change the name of the folder from the quick access section, or any other method using Explorer, it will be updated everywhere. If you rename anything using a 3rd party app or method, Explorer will not be aware of the changes and the links will be broken.

In Windows 10, there is a folder called Network Shortcuts. Each user account gets one of it’s own. Any files that exist in this folder will show up in Explorer’s This PC, under Network Locations. Kinda how your desktop folder works.

You can use this feature to have fast access to files and folders for whatever reason you need. Here’s how…

Simply place your files in this location:

C:\Users\*YOUR USER FOLDER*\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Network Shortcuts

Now when you open ‘This PC’ in Windows Explorer, a new section will appear at the bottom, called Network Locations. That is, if it did not already exist. It will also show the number of files/folders that exist in the root of the folder.

There are still more ways to gain quick access in Windows that I could’ve mentioned. For example, the taskbar offers quick access as well, but that’s only one of its many bad ass uses. It deserves an article of it’s own.

Hmmm. Now that I think about it, so does the Start Menu….. And so does the Desktop… And… OK, OK. I’ll get those posted soon…

In the meantime, check this article out to get a full run up of the Windows Taskbar….

If you want to get into more advanced shortcutting, check out this article here.