Windows 10: Rename pinned items in Windows Explorer's Quick Access

I just got done upgrading Windows 8 to Windows 10 and I've found that the 'Favorites' panel in Windows Explorer got replaced with a 'Quick Access' panel and I can't seem to find a way to rename the pinned items in Quick Access like I could for favorite items under Windows 8.

Some of my pinned items are program-generated folders and I really don't have the option to rename them.

Am I missing something or did the rename feature get left out?

Loman

Posted 2015-07-30T03:17:55.960

Reputation: 1 061

2It looks like it was left out. – Julien – 2015-07-30T11:17:36.977

For some reason, my Mail entry got called "Correo" instead of "Mail" and I cannot change it. This is absolutely not a functionality problem, but still makes very mad. – Marcelo – 2015-08-07T03:27:42.700

If you check the Users[username]\Links folder, you may still able to find the renamed shortcuts. Not the best solution, but I added the Link folder to the library so that I can access to it. but still not as good as the old favorites feature. – dsum – 2015-09-25T16:17:19.617

It seems this problem is bothering quite some people... http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files/rename-pinned-items-in-windows-explorer-quick/ddf15e5b-d8e4-4d17-aced-86048da6ced4

– Antonio – 2016-08-04T15:46:31.523

4Simply annoying. Mac OS' Finder has a similar behaviour - for a long time I was happy that Windows 7 did not do that - I also often deal with different folders with the same name. – jingtao – 2016-09-19T10:08:29.510

It's possible to re-enable the favorites folder but it seems that the dropdown links don't work correctly, so it's not a valid solution to the problem.

– BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft – 2018-08-15T21:04:15.623

Answers

Sort of a hack, but I ended up using mklink to create Directory Junctions with the names I wanted, since they took away my beloved Favorites.

So, if I have a directory "c:\dir1", which I want to be named "Directory 1" in the Quick Access list, I would run:

mklink /J "c:\whatever\Directory 1" "c:\dir1"

Then you'll see "Directory 1" in "c:\whatever", which you can add to Quick Access, and it will be named "Directory 1".

NightShovel

Posted 2015-07-30T03:17:55.960

Reputation: 551

4This works great, thanks! Still bothers me, since I used to have folders in my Dropbox in my favorites list, this way those show up with the link symbol in the lower left instead of the sync status ... pretty annoying. – MoritzLost – 2015-10-09T20:45:30.703

1This doesn't seem to work anymore, or at least not for directory links (mklink /D) e.g. for network shares... – Tobias Kienzler – 2016-02-22T15:07:58.413

3@TobiasKienzler I wanted links to network shares myself. My workaround was to create the junction at the server in question instead of the computer where I want the quick access link, then pin the junction – MrVimes – 2016-04-09T10:18:33.610

Here you can find a complete example of how to hack it with mlink. – sentenza – 2016-11-09T07:20:15.273

Bear in mind that you may have to create the symlinks in the root of a drive if they point to very long paths. – mythofechelon – 2017-03-03T10:46:09.987

Is there any way to make symbolic junction links behave like shortcuts? Currently, if I create symbolic junction link D:\symlinks\Tools pointing to D:\Users\ben.hooper\Dropbox (Personal)\Public\Tools and browse to it then I actually browse to D:\symlinks\Tools and can't move up to folder D:\Users\ben.hooper\Dropbox (Personal)\Public. – mythofechelon – 2017-03-03T10:50:54.910

@MoritzLost It seems that middle-clicking the shortcuts / links causes the destination folder to open "properly" thereby showing Dropbox's sync symbols. – mythofechelon – 2017-03-24T19:29:41.537

2A great work around! The only caveat is that the path of the newly created link is not having the original path instead it has new one (e.g. if you check the path in cmd) – dan – 2017-07-31T10:50:39.503

To me it looks like that Quick Access items are not shortcuts anymore. They behave differently and just show the items directly instead of showing traditional shortcuts. This means when going to edit Properties, you are indeed editing the items themselves.

This is disappointing of course. I had a couple folders with the same name (in different locations) that are tied to programs so I can't rename them directly.

Scott

Posted 2015-07-30T03:17:55.960

Reputation: 557

13Ditto - I have six "Plugins" folders for different versions of an application I develop for. Now the favoritebar is pointless... – thomthom – 2015-08-15T22:08:16.437

8I believe Scott's is the correct answer to this question (i.e. you can't do it), so I suggest that Loman should accept this answer. By the way, I just tried to pin a shortcut and that doesn't solve the problem either because it pins the folder that the shortcut points to rather than the shortcut itself. – HansA – 2015-08-19T00:27:37.633

@HansA Technically correct, I am afraid :/ Actually, I cannot even pin the shortcut itself...

– Tobias Kienzler – 2016-02-22T15:07:20.197

@HansA It seems a better answer emerged.

– Antonio – 2016-08-04T15:48:39.353

2@thomthom that's Microsoft concept of super intelligent ideas of shiny new features. – v.oddou – 2017-12-18T08:31:06.070

Third party application is Clover, you may want to try that and use the bookmark functionality. Bookmarks can be renamed into the name of your liking.

mathijsuitmegen

Posted 2015-07-30T03:17:55.960

Reputation: 243

Sort of a kludge, but it works:

Add the desired directory to a Library
Rename the library as you wish
Pin the Library to Quick Access

Update: I used the solution above for a while, then I found it cumbersome to maintain and now I have done this:

Created a "Favorites" folder anywhere in my hard disk and pinned it to Quick Access (you can even change its icon to make it look like a star)
Put inside it all the shortcut I want to access rapidly

It kinda restores the Favorites feature but with the hassle of an additional step.

dr01

Posted 2015-07-30T03:17:55.960

Reputation: 2 509

This may be a kludge, but it doesn't require any external software so, I kind of like it. How do I "add the desired directory to a Library" please? – nurdglaw – 2018-07-06T13:55:28.250

I played with this idea, a lot of the available information talks about libraries as a collection of shortcuts but if you create a new library and add folder locations to them they are "shortcuts" to that exact folder, consequently renaming the "shortcut" renames the folder! – boardtc – 2018-11-06T14:43:06.997

Consider splitting into two answers, since it describes two very different methods, and that makes the answer hard to read and interact with. – Mathieu K. – 2019-04-12T16:50:54.110