Deleting quick access links from disconnected network drive in Explorer

Question

I created a number of quick access links in Windows Explorer on a network drive that is no longer used.

Ever time I accidentally click them, or drag a folder over them (on the way to one of the functioning links) Windows Explorer hangs for about a minute, and pops up an error dialog.

Here are 2 screenshots of the hanging. I clicked on the "Paris Speaker 1 Pager" link (which points to a network drive which is not connected) and the loading cursor pops up. After ~1 minute, the error in the bottom of the image pops up.

I would like to delete them, but when I try, the same hanging happens, and it takes around 3 minutes to delete each link.

Is there a faster way to delete these dead links?

Answer 1

Click the Quick access button (the blue star) at the top. In the right pane or the folder view, select the FTP link, press CTRL and select another item that you want to Unpin. Multi-selecting items (FTP & a normal pinned folder) and right-clicking would show the context menu options correctly. Click Unpin from Quick access. For instance, you can Pin a test folder to Quick access, and then remove the FTP and test folder both together.

This is the only fix that worked for me and possibly the easiest !

Source : http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/unpin-ftp-links-stuck-quick-access-windows-10/

Answer 2

I tried Greg's answer and was unsuccessful. Instead, I utilized the "nuclear" option which removes all Quick Access items.

There is a simple command that clears all Quick Access and Recent items. Here are the instructions.

Warning: the following command clears all Quick Access and Recent items.

1. Press + R to launch the Run... dialog

2. Paste the following command into the dialog box

   cmd.exe /c del "%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms"
   

3. Press Enter or click OK

Source.

Answer 3

I was having trouble getting my File Explorer in Windows 10 from even coming up, I had a lot of items pinned on it to a network share that was no longer available. As far as I know it was never going to come back after many minutes, locked up - spinning thingy.

Then I remembered that I could go to the old control panel, which is really file explorer:

So right click on Windows flag, bottom left of the Task Bar, then click on Apps and features, then click on Programs and Features (I know there are probably better ways than this to get there.)

Now you can navigate to drive C or other drives or network shares. But I still needed to unpin the items that were in the Quick Access, or wouldn't be able to run the normal Windows Explore or probably any file open or save dialogs (not sure on that last part).

Now right click on Quick Access, click options, then under privacy click the Clear button. It clears every item pinned to Quick Access that it put there that you used recently, but not the ones you pinned there.

Apparently I need to be patient and wait until I can unpin each of the items I pinned.

Answer 4

On Windows 10, click on the icon Quick access (blue star), then right click on the dead link appearing in the "Frequent folders" panel on the right panel and choose "Unpin/Remove from Quick access". There should be no error message.

Answer 5

Loading only occurs when you try to view the content of the folder.

Without left clicking, but directly right clicking on this folder in the Quick Access list, you can unpin it from Quick Access.

So, rightclick the folder without selecting it, and choose unpin from Quick Access.

Make sure a different folder is viewed at all times.