File Explorer is the beating heart of the Windows 11 operating system.
It's where all our files, folders, documents, spreadsheets, images, and
other items are stored.
A file explorer is one of those things that you're going to find yourself using
on a daily basis.
So I would highly recommend if you don't already have it pinned to the taskbar,
that you go into the Start menu.
Find File Explorer, and then pin it so it's easy for you to access.
I already have mine pinned, so I'm not going to do that, but
that is my recommendation.
So let's fire up File Explorer and take a look.
Now File Explorer is essentially a navigation system, it lets us find
all of the files that we have stored in different folders on our PC.
In fact we can find absolutely everything that we have installed on our PC
including things like applications and system files, in File Explorer.
So it's really important that you understand how File Explorer works, and
how you can use it in different ways.
Now if you're not that familiar with File Explorer,
I will say that in Windows 11 it does look quite a bit different to Windows 10.
In Windows 10 we didn't have this kind of menu system running across the top.
So let's first start out by taking a look at the different parts of File Explorer so
we understand what we're looking at.
Now all the way over on the left hand side,
this is where we kind of have our navigation area.
You can see the top one here is Quick access if I expand this by clicking on
the arrow.
You can see anything that I've added into this Quick access area.
Now Quick access will show folders that you've been into recently so
like these ones at the bottom.
But it will also show folders that you have pinned to this area.
Notice all of these folders that have drawing pin icons next to them,
have been pinned to Quick access.
And we can pin any folder to Quick access to make it easy for us to find.
So instead of browsing through lots of different folders and subfolders.
If it's a folder that we use often,
we might as well pin it to our Quick access menu.
For example if I expand let's just expand OneDrive for a moment.
If I use the pictures folder in my OneDrive all the time, I could right
click, and notice in the right click menu, I have pin to Quick access.
If I click this it's going to put it up in this Quick access area and
you can see there it is, Pictures.
If I want to unpin it, I can right click, and
Unpin from Quick access to put it back.
Now I like to keep my Quick access area fairly clean I just like to have
the folders that I want to pin in this area.
I don't particularly like having folders in here as well that I've recently
accessed, so we can change that.
If we right click on the Quick access menu and
go to Show more options, and then Options again.
On this general tab right at the bottom we can choose,
what we want to show in Quick access.
So currently I'm showing recently used files and
frequently used folders, so I'm going to untick both of those, click on Ok.
And you can now see my Quick access area is just showing the folders,
that I've pinned to Quick access.
So for me, that's a lot cleaner looking but again, I'll leave it up to you.
Now a couple of important things about File Explorer,
let's just collapse up all of our folders and click on this PC.
So when we click on this PC it's going to show us all
of the standard folders that we have in File Explorer.
That are created for us, when we sign into Windows 11.
And once again there is a little bit of a change here between Windows 11 and
Windows 10.
In the older version or in the predecessor version Windows 10,
all of these standard folders were the same color that same yellow folder color.
Now they've changed the color to make them a little bit easier to see and
differentiate from the others.
So these are the standard folders that we always have, Desktop, Documents,
Downloads, Videos, Pictures and Music.
And I would highly recommend when you are saving files to your PC.
To try and work within the structure that we already have within File Explorer.
So put your documents in the Documents folder,
remember you can always create subfolders to organize them a little bit further.
But in general, working with the current structure instead of working against it,
is going to work out a lot better for you.
Also notice underneath we can see any devices that we have connected, and
also any drives.
So currently I just have a C drive on my PC, and
it's showing me how much space I have left.
So I can see I'm sort of getting fairly close to filling up my drive,
so I'm probably going to want to delete some files.
Now if I decided that I wanted to plug something into my system, so
maybe I want to store some files off on an external hard drive.
When I plug it in I'm going to see,
that hard drive in this Devices and drives section.
And anything in here any drive will be given a letter, and
in general the standard one on your PC is called the C drive.
And if you plug in something like an external hard drive,
that will normally be given a letter like D or maybe even E.
Now if I want to go into any of these folders for
example Documents I can simply double click, and it's going to take me in there.
And you can see that I have some subfolders in here already.
Now I haven't created any of these subfolders they're ones that have been
created automatically based on what I've been doing on my PC.
For example, I'm recording videos right now, and so
I have a folder here called Camtasia.
Which is the software that I use to record these videos, and if I double click,
I can see here are all my video files.
So the point I'm trying to make here is that I didn't actually physically create
this folder, it was created automatically.
So if you jump into something like Documents and
you see folders in there already, don't worry too much.
Nothing's wrong, they're just folders that the system needs in order to work.
If we double click on the Desktop folder this is going to show us any items that we
have on our desktop.
Now currently the only thing I have on here is the recycle bin.
Now the recycle bin folder I guess you could call it,
doesn't actually show when you click on Desktop in File Explorer.
If I had another folder in here so
I can very quickly create a folder on my Desktop.
You can see then that reflects within the File Explorer structure.
If I delete this out, it's also going to delete it out from the actual folder.
So that's all the Desktop really is one big folder,
another area where we can store our files.
Now when we do start drilling down into different folders and
subfolders let's use the example of My Documents again.
Let's go in and I'm going to open Camtasia,
notice just above it's building what we call a breadcrumb trail.
So it's showing us the exact path we've taken to get to these particular files.
If I want to go back a level I can simply click on the relevant item in
the breadcrumb trail, to go back to that specific folder.
So really simple to navigate.
We can also expand this PC at the side here, and
we can drill down through the different folders in that way as well.
Now the final point to mention here when it comes to the C drive.
If we double click on this, it's going to show us a whole bunch of folders,
and none of these I created myself.
Because what you'll find is the C drive houses,
a lot of the system files that Windows 11 needs to work.
And I would highly recommend that you don't mess around in here too much.
Don't start deleting things out because you might find that you delete a file
that's really important for your system, and things start to break.
So in general I don't tend to come in here too much.
However there is one folder that you should be aware of, and
that is the Users folder just here.
If we double click on this it's going to show all of the people that have
an account set up on this PC.
So I have a couple of different accounts I have,
one underneath my name, and one underneath cell_.
Because I'm currently logged into my PC under my account called cell mates.
Now on your PC if this is a home system,
you're going to see a folder with your name on it basically I have two.
So if I double click on cell_, this is what we call our home folder, and
this is where all of our personal files and folders are stored.
So you can see in there things like Documents, Desktop, Music,
I've got my OneDrive account in there as well and my Pictures.
And every single user on this PC will have their own home folder.
So if all the members of your family have an account on this PC,
you're going to see all the different names for people down here.
Now if I try and access somebody else's home folder so that I can see their files.
For example if I double click on deb_a, it's going to tell me that I don't
currently have permissions to access that folder.
And that's because I'm not currently logged in underneath this account,
the only folder I can access is this one just here.
So hopefully that puts your mind at rest a little bit if you have lots of people
sharing one PC.
You can't just simply open up their folder, and
start looking through all of their files.