Win+E: File Explorer instantly

You probably open File Explorer twenty times a day without even noticing — every time you're looking for a file, copying a document, or creating a new folder. Save yourself twenty trips with the mouse to a taskbar icon and learn to open it with one keypress from anywhere.

A typical scenario

Ondřej, a designer, is working in a full-screen editor and needs to quickly find a file saved in his project folder. Without the shortcut, that means minimizing the current window, finding the Explorer icon on the taskbar (if it's even there), clicking, and waiting for it to open — and repeating the whole thing every time he needs to switch between the editor and the file system.

With Win + E, Explorer opens instantly, no matter what he's doing or in which app. No hunting for an icon, no interrupting his work by minimizing a window — one keypress and he's there, just as reliably as reaching for the mouse, only much faster.

How to do it

1. Press Win + E — File Explorer opens from anywhere, regardless of which app was active.
2. A few follow-up shortcuts come in handy inside Explorer: Ctrl + Shift + N creates a new folder in the current location, F2 renames the selected file or folder, and Alt + ↑ moves you up one level in the folder structure.
3. Pressing Win + E again while Explorer is already running opens another, new Explorer window — handy when you need two different folders open side by side.
4. You can set the default location Explorer shows when opened via the shortcut in the Explorer shortcut's properties — useful if you spend most of the day in one specific folder or network drive.
5. Pin the folders you return to most often in the left sidebar — after opening via the shortcut, they're one click away, no need to click through the whole folder structure again.

The best tools

• Windows' built-in File Explorer (Win + E) — covers the vast majority of everyday file work, nothing else to install.
• Tabs in File Explorer (Ctrl + T) — a built-in feature in newer versions of Windows, lets you have several folders open in one window as tabs, like a browser.
• PowerToys — PowerRename — a free add-on for bulk-renaming multiple files at once by a pattern, when F2 on a single file isn't enough.
• Total Commander or a similar file manager — for power users who need more advanced file handling, folder comparison, or batch operations.
• Everything (voidtools) — lightning-fast full-text file name search across the entire system, when Explorer's built-in search isn't enough.

What you get out of it

• Time: a few seconds saved per open adds up to a few minutes across twenty opens a day.
• Fewer interruptions: no need to minimize the current window or hunt for an icon on the taskbar — work in the other app stays right where it was.
• A smoother file workflow: combining the open shortcut with the shortcuts inside it (new folder, rename) speeds up the whole file routine, not just opening the window.
• Easier copying between folders: with tabs in one window, there's no need to keep two separate Explorer windows open side by side.

Pro tip

Explorer has tabs: Ctrl + T opens a new tab right in the current window, much like a new browser tab — copying and moving files between two folders then just takes dragging between tabs, no need for a second Explorer window.