This is a possible solution if you find Windows File Explorer going slow. It is less well known and does not show up in many of the lists of solutions to try when you experience this behaviour.
I always find it annoying when my computer’s behaviour changes drastically enough to affect my work and a while back, whenever I opened File Explorer or used an application and it used File Explorer to retrieve a file it would take ages to find. We talking about a change from about a few seconds (almost instantaneous) to about 1 a minute or more to display all the folder options, in the left-hand pane. The slow loading was also often accompanied by the progressive search indication in the address bar. And this happened every time the machine started up. So it was not something a ‘shut-down’ and ‘restart’ would solve (shutting the machine down and restarting is always one the first thing to try and often successful). While the slow file searching did not stop work, it was seriously hindering and downright annoying.
This slowdown confused me as I could not think what might be the cause of it, but I had a sneaking suspicion File Explorer was looking for devices or networks no longer connected to the computer, but even when all network drives were connected the behaviour persisted. Frustratingly all the possible solutions that I was coming across were not resolving it and I spent a LONG time trying to find a solution to it.
The fix in this case was “Delete automatic destinations” found on The Geek Page (https://thegeekpage.com/file-explorer-is-opening-too-slow/)*. The process of resolving it is easy enough.
- Open the run command box by pressing the Windows key + R together
- Into the text field copy and paste the following code, then run.
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations- Select all files in the folder and delete them.
No promises that this is a fix for you, and if it does not work it is probably worth browsing and working through the possible fixes mentioned by The Geek Page.
* I’m not affiliated with them in any way, but happy to give a shout-out for mentioning this as a possible solution.