The Cluttered Navigation Pane
The File Explorer in Windows 11 features a left-hand navigation pane designed to help you jump quickly between drives and folders. By default, the top section of this pane is dedicated to “Quick Access” (often labelled “Home” in newer builds), which contains pinned folders like Desktop, Documents, and Downloads. However, Windows 11 has a frustrating habit of automatically expanding this Quick Access group every time you open a new Explorer window, pushing your local C: drive and network locations off the bottom of the screen and forcing you to scroll down constantly.
Collapsing the Group Permanently
If you prefer a streamlined navigation pane where the Quick Access folders remain neatly tucked away until you explicitly need them, you can configure File Explorer to stop automatically expanding that specific section upon launch.
Open a new File Explorer window. Click the three horizontal dots (the “See more” menu) located on the top command bar, and select Options from the dropdown menu to open the Folder Options dialogue box. Ensure you are on the General tab. Look at the very top section labelled “Open File Explorer to:”. Ensure this dropdown is set to This PC rather than “Home” or “Quick Access.” Next, scroll down to the “Privacy” section. Uncheck the box labelled Show frequently used folders in Quick access. Finally, click the View tab, scroll to the bottom of the Advanced Settings list, and uncheck Expand to open folder under the Navigation Pane heading. Click Apply, then OK. The Quick Access group will no longer aggressively expand itself.