Microsoft is preparing to overhaul Windows 11 File Explorer

[Daniel Sims]

Something to look forward to: Microsoft has been making changes to the File Explorer interface in Windows 11 since early last year, but it looks like a more significant overhaul is on the horizon. The company plans to reorganize some of the app's current features while integrating it more closely with its other tools.

Windows Central obtained internal mockups this week previewing Microsoft's planned changes to Windows 11's File Explorer. Later this year, the company will significantly refresh the app while adding functions that connect to OneDrive and Microsoft 365.

The mockups show a redesigned header with a simplified row of icons and a home button. The refresh moves features like copy and paste into a separate banner in the file pane below the header.

The home button seems to lead to a page filled with recommended, pinned, and recently accessed items. The recommended files in the mockup look like recently modified files in a cloud workgroup, likely utilizing Microsoft's OneDrive, and a recently downloaded file.

Another mockup shows what happens when a user brings up a file's information in the details pane, revealing additional cloud and email integration. Users can see lists showing what other workgroup members have done with a file, related files, and related email conversations.

A new "gallery" area improves how users view and organize pictures in File Explorer. Mousing over pictures reveals larger previews.

Furthermore, sources told Windows Central that Microsoft might add the ability to tag files, making them easier to sort. The company may also widen the hitboxes on items in the File Explorer to make it more usable on touch screens. All of the additions would join the web browser-style tabs that Microsoft revealed for Windows 11's File Explorer last March. The feature is also coming to Notepad.

Currently, Microsoft aims to roll out the File Explorer overhaul before the end of the year. It could be the centerpiece of a Moment update or Windows 11's 23H2 update.

Users who don't want to wait for extra file management functionality or still use Windows 10 could check out alternatives to Microsoft's official File Explorer. The best include Files, RX Explorer, One Commander, TagSpaces, and XYplorer.

Image Credit: Windows Central

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/97389-microsoft-preparing-overhaul-windows-11-file-explorer.html

 

[Tinckerbel]

On my wishlist for File Explorer:
- Tabs that you can drag drop on another explorer window.
- A column browser like OS X
- Quickview

That way I can at least ditch Groupy and Quicklook

 

[Theinsanegamer]

God that preview looks awful.

Microsoft, stop pushing cloud garbage. Sometimes I want to save something to my local PC, alright? And stop replacing words with symbols, it doesnt work, it looks like crap, and it disrupts workflows. Stop getting rid of borders around buttons and making nebulous white space everywhere. And really, REALLY, dont use detail and gallery panes in different places, that will be confusing as hell.

 

[Superconductor]

New blood @ Micro$oft is constantly messing stuff up ...
Stop with the integration nonsense and fix fundamental stability!

 

[passwordistaco]

Remember when Microsoft caught an antitrust **** storm for baking IE into Windows? But this is all fine now. The REAL problem is with them buying a game company.

 

[bviktor]

Give us dual panels, that's about it.

 

[ZedRM]

Microsoft, stop pushing cloud garbage. Sometimes I want to save something to my local PC, alright? And stop replacing words with symbols, it doesnt work, it looks like crap, and it disrupts workflows. Stop getting rid of borders around buttons and making nebulous white space everywhere. And really, REALLY, dont use detail and gallery panes in different places, that will be confusing as hell.

Can not agree more! We don't need all of this integration crap!

 

[BadThad]

Once change is coming soon - the new file explorer will probably end-up deleting, corrupting or losing files. Let the world beta test for months before getting it!

 

[Stingy McDuck]

Just download Total commander or any open source equivalent and stop waiting for updates on such a basic tool as a file Explorer.

 

[koblongata]

Whatever, remove the overhaul of the taskbar please

 

[AndrettiGTO]

Maybe they’ll bring back manual sorting inside folders. At least it’s now available inside the start menu.

 

[OortCloud]

File Explorer seems fine to me, I wish they would sort out Search instead. It's still awful. I can't understand why its so bad. How difficult can it be to write something that comes up with the files and applications and document content I actually searched for? As they keep pairing the windows interface back with more and more basic Start Menus a functional Search becomes more and more important, but they seem incapable of writing one.

 

[Sir Sparkles]

Moving the deckchairs around on the Titanic again.

 

[captaincranky]

Can not agree more! We don't need all of this integration crap!

I thought everybody got an unsettling preview of this in Windows 10 and the store, where, "all roads lead to......something else they try to sell you".

Or maybe a simpler, (but certainly not clandestine), explanation would be, they're trying to make, "all roads lead to Redmond".