Enhance Windows Explorer navigation using Direct Folders

Posted on October 2, 2008 at 5:43 am

I love freeware applications that significantly enhance my productivity when performing simple tasks like opening a file, which if you can imagine, can be quite inefficient and waste a lot of time. For example, if you are opening a photo from Photoshop, it would be nice if you could see thumbnails by default rather than a list of pictures.

Or let’s say you access a network folder quite often, like your home folder at the office, so it would be great if you could get to that folder directly without having to click on My Computer and then drill down to the exact folder you want, which could be many levels deep.

Windows Explorer is nice, but there are lots of cool programs that can significantly enhance your productivity. I wrote earlier about a program called QTAddressBar, which allows you to get the Vista breadcrumbs feature in XP! and Q-Dir, an alternative to Windows Explorer with four panes instead of one!

Now you should try out Direct Folders, a free program that allows you to access your favorite folders and applications quickly by simple double-clicking in a white area in Windows Explorer, in a Open or Save dialog, or even from the desktop.

So if you are in Photoshop and you click on File and then Open, you can double-click in any white area and you’ll get a new menu that looks like this:

Instead of clicking on the Look in box at the top and slowly navigating your way to the desired folder or even typing the path manually in the File name box, you can simple configure Direct Folders to store an entry that points directly to that folder, such as the My Documents, My Music and Downloads folders in the above screenshot.

The cool thing about this program is that it also remembers which folders you opened previously and so if you click on the Recent sub-menu item, you’ll get a list of recent folders and files in the current application, any paths and files that are in the clipboard, and any paths currently open in Windows Explorer.

Another nice thing the program does is automatically resize those standard dialog boxes (such as Open, Save, etc) so that you can see more files at once.

But that’s not all of the cool features of this program! Another one is the fact that it can automatically switch the folder view (list, details, thumbnails, etc) of any dialog based on which application you are using. So if you are using Photoshop, you can configure Direct Folders to always use Thumbnails when opening a file, etc.

If you are using Word, you may prefer Details view so you can see the size and last edit time of a document. In order to change these settings, you can right-click on the tray icon for Direct Folders and choose Configure.

On the Organize Folders tab, you can add your favorite folders that will appear when you double-click on an empty white space. Another thing is that you can double-click on the desktop and go directly to a folder without even having to open My Computer.

On the Applications tab, you can add an application and then configure the View and the Sorting order.

Overall, it’s a great program for quickly launching Windows Explorer already set to a specific folder rather than just a list of drives. Enjoy!

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Comments

One Response to “Enhance Windows Explorer navigation using Direct Folders”

PC said on : October 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am

Very handy utility for lazy people like me..

I used to customize my context menus through some registry hacks, but this is way more easier..

Thanks for the share..