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How can I rename Quick Access links in Windows 10 without renaming actual folder?

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Wednesday, September 7, 2016 3:12 PM | 25 votes

I know the current answer might be "not possible", but we need this flexibility in place before moving some of our users to Windows 10.  As an advocate for our internal customers and the usage of SharePoint libraries for document control, please help me find a way to rename those Quick Access links without impacting the actual name of the folder it's pointing to.

We currently use SharePoint for some of our document-intensive, paperless processes and are able to have customized File Explorer Favorite links in Windows 7 that point to numerous document libraries where our users can simply drag/drop directly from Outlook or their desktop without having to visit the actual websites via Internet Explorer.  This feature/ability has been a godsend for us and has greatly improved document management efficiency.  In the various sites, the Document Libraries maintain the same naming convention to improve the User Experience in the sites themselves, but we are able to add those links to the Windows 7 Favorites list and rename the links based on user preference.

In Windows 10, with the Quick Access bar, we're able to add the Document Library links to the list, but can't rename them.  This won't work for our users since the names of those libraries are all the same.  In effect, the user running Windows 10 would see 5 "Documents" links that point to 5 different SharePoint Document Libraries.  They wouldn't know which link was what, and this will be a horrible User Experience for them.  Although I have found workarounds, those will introduce a number of new steps into their processes and materially impact their efficiency in managing corporate documents.

So is there a way to do this?  Or is there a way to get the Windows 7-style Favorites to show underneath or replace the Quick Access feature in File Explorer?

Microsoft, if this is not currently possible, please make it so in one of the next Windows 10 Updates.  We rely heavily on this capability in Windows 7 and this likely will prevent us from upgrading to Windows 10 for those users until we have this flexibility.

All replies (43)

Thursday, September 8, 2016 2:27 AM ✅Answered | 1 vote

Hi,

I am sorry for no solution, just as what you said, no possible.

I ever came up with this plan: create a shortcut that is point to a document folder, then pin this shortcut to Quick access, as we know that shortcut can be renamed freely and will not influence original folder’s name.

However, when I test this way, the shortcut does can be pinned to Quick access, while the display name is not this shortcut’s name, it is the target folder’s name, very strange.

I don’t have other idea, you can feed back your demand to Microsoft by built-in Feedback app. In addition, please try ask for help from SharePoint forum to see if can give you hints.

Regards

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Tuesday, March 28, 2017 9:08 PM

This workaround solution does not always work, as Windows 10 doesn't let you pin network folder shortcuts to Quick Access. The option to pin to Quick Access is in the context menu, but it does nothing.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017 1:38 PM | 13 votes

I know this is an old post, but I have a much better solution to this than what I've found online (creating symbolic links).

  1. Create a new Library named how you want the shortcut to appear
  2. Go to the Properties of this new Library and add your intended target folder
  3. Change the library icon, if you wish
  4. Right-click on this new Library and choose 'Pin to Quick Access'

Granted, this will now add each 'shortcut' you wish to add to Quick Access to the Libraries section, but it's easy enough to simply hide the Libraries in Windows Explorer and utilize only Quick Access. Hope this helps, because it drove me nuts trying to find a solution to this Microsoft-created (for no damn reason) problem.

Monday, April 17, 2017 8:49 PM | 11 votes

In windows 7 I could open a SharePoint folder in windows explorer, drag it onto the links section, and rename it from "shared documents" to something else.  No creating libraries, no using "mklink" via command.  Why in the heck does Windows 10 Quick Links operate any differently?   This needs to be fixed asap ... as it's taking the world BACK a step.

Thursday, May 25, 2017 6:18 PM | 11 votes

I agree. This is hideous. They've essentially ruined Quick Links. I can't even make a shortcut, change the name of that, and set that as a Quick Access link? really? I'm stuck with Windows 10 at the office and it's killing me. Sure doesn't motivate me to upgrade to 10 on my personal devices. 

Thursday, May 25, 2017 6:23 PM | 2 votes

Thank you... adds an extra layer, but sorta helps. It's absolutely ridiculous they've invalidated the entire purpose of this bar for me. 

Thursday, May 25, 2017 10:56 PM

a way to get the Windows 7-style Favorites to show underneath or replace the Quick Access feature in File Explorer?

Links directories still exist.  Why not use them?  In fact, they are accessible using  shell:links  so users needn't know where they are.  BTW where were they in W7?

Robert Aldwinckle

Thursday, November 9, 2017 2:40 PM | 6 votes

Thanks for the workaround - agreed this is absolutely ridiculous...

My network at work has many sub-directories that have the same name (in different month/quarter/year parent directories), and I need to be able to rename the shortcut without renaming the actual directory like Windows 7 allowed with favorites.

"Quick access" is useless garbage - bring back favorites!

Friday, November 10, 2017 12:53 PM | 1 vote

I like the Library workaround but I've hit another snag. If I try to do this with a network location, it won't let me add it to a library because I can't index it. Any ideas how I can get around this?

Friday, November 10, 2017 7:25 PM | 3 votes

I like the Library workaround but I've hit another snag. If I try to do this with a network location, it won't let me add it to a library because I can't index it. Any ideas how I can get around this?

As NPT66 mentioned, creating symbolic links is the way to go. Quote from another article here (thanks to Cecilia Zhou, whom I'm quoting!), since I can't post links:

Add a non-indexed UNC as a library
===========================
1. Create a folder on your hard drive for shares. i.e. c:\share
2. Create another folder in the above share. i.e. c:\share\music
2. Link the Library to this folder. 
3. Delete the folder.
4. Use the mklink in an elevated command prompt to make a symbolic link. Name the link the same as the folder you created above. 
i.e - mklink /d c:\share\music \\server\music
5. Done. Now you have non-indexed UNC path as a library.

If it's not working, make sure you have each path in quotes if there are spaces in any of the folder names (e.g. "C:\folder1\space folder").

Also, if you don't know the UNC server name for the network drive (where \server is mentioned in the quoted article), you can run this command:

net use

Then, you can replace the network drive letter in the path to the network drive folder with the correct server name. (H:\folder should become \server\folder)

Windows, everyone!

Tuesday, November 14, 2017 11:30 AM

This problem is one of the main reasons why I prefer using FreeCommander instead of the Windows Explorer. Of course this doesn't help if you want to open something from inside Excel etc., but you can at least navigate there with FC and the copy the path and paste it into the File Open path. Really cumbersome, I know.

Friday, November 17, 2017 3:01 AM | 8 votes

I HAVE IT!!!

At least for Network locations... (and a workaround for local drives)

If you've tried like me to add a network location to a Library - denied due to it not being indexed (and ridiculously, the link presented in the dialog box, "How can this folder be indexed?", redirects to the base Windows help and how to, "https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/products/windows?os=windows-10" - hilarious :-D).

Forget it, I'm pretty sure MS don't want you to use "Libraries" anymore... just go with it and turn them off in the 'Navigation Pane' - forget Libraries. Just use the System Folders, and network shares.

 

SOLUTION: - Forget Quick access altogether! - delete all your links there, so it is reduced to just a redundant thing at the top of the Navigation pane like the scum it is.

  1. Find and click "Add a network location" by either; right click on "This PC", right click in open space in the main window on "This PC", click on Computer in the 'Ribbon' (while "This PC" is selected).
  2. Click Next, and select "Choose a custom network location", click Next.
  3. For me the Browse button on the right brings up some stupid dysfunctional window, so just type or paste in the address of the network folder you want the shortcut to open to (sorry I'm not going to explain how to figure that out here - if you are unsure look elsewhere) - click Next.
  4. Create a name for the shortcut!! \O^/ - click Next.
  5. Read the fantastical box telling you that you have successfully created a network location and shortcut, Click Finish.

Viola! - a 'Shortcut' is created under "This PC"- which in the Navigation Pane is placed in alphabetical order up with the 'Folders' (which you might not like but you can rename them), but in the Main window of "This PC" (or "Computer"), is sorted with 'Network locations'... unless you change 'Group by' to (None).

**Feel free to rename the shortcuts you create here so that they are sorted to your liking!** - TIP: if you prefix the shortcut names with a "!" they will all appear at the top!

**FOR LOCAL DRIVES:** - it's an extra couple of clicks, but isn't too bad if you are frequently navigating to a deep folder...

  1. Create a folder on your Desktop called 'Links' (or 'Shortcuts' or whatever).
  2. Place shortcuts to places (and files!) here and name them however you wish (this also works for Network locations if you don't want to do the 'Add a network location' above).
  3. Expand the 'Desktop' under 'This PC' to see the folder, and click on it to see your shortcuts in the main window.



Strangely, the 'Desktop' under 'This PC' is not actually your Desktop - I don't know what the go is here, but when you change the Navigation Pane to 'Show all folders', your actual Desktop appears at the top, and will have all the other content in it that is actually on your Desktop. With a second Desktop still under This PC (I am on a work Domain, so I don't know if this has something to do with it), and crazily Folders on your actual Desktop appear at the very bottom of the Navigation Pane! ~sigh~

The view in the Navigation Pane is neater if 'Show all folders' is OFF.

It infuriates me that the Navigation Pane is not able to be custom sorted, but that is yet another UX issue.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017 4:56 PM

@NTP66 Great solution! - In addition to this, I changed the "group by" feature of the folder to "(None)".  Libraries seem to have "group by" enabled by default.

Tuesday, December 26, 2017 9:15 PM

A possibility that may or may not be suitable in your situation...

You can amend the display alias of any folder without renaming it using a desktop.ini file.

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=My New Folder Name

To make the desktop.ini file take effect, set the Folder with the Read Only attribute (which has been bastardised to mean "special folder" and no longer means "read only"). You can't set this from File Explorer (the interface still exists but no longer works on the folder itself, only the files within it): you have to use a Command Prompt.

Quick Access will respect this convention, although some apps will fail to display the alias and will show the actual path instead.

The desktop.ini can also be used to apply aliases to files within the folder, define a custom icon for the folder, and set the default view for the folder (Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, General Items).

Bear in mind that if you change the alias for a system folder, such as Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, then the names will remain fixed when the language of the OS is changed (implications for Multilingual users).

Also, once an alias is defined in desktop.ini, renaming the folder in File Explorer changes the alias, not the underlying file path.

Friday, January 5, 2018 9:57 PM

I tried various proposed solutions involving links made through mklink, Junction and Powershell commands creating links (named what I preferred to name the Quick Access to a remote folder), but none worked. Here is a work-around that was successful (remote machine is Windows 7), at least for my purposes:

1) On remote machine, right-click the target directory and select Advanced Sharing. Create a Share Name that is what  you want for the Quick Access item.

2) On the original Win 10 machine, start File Explorer, then select "Network" and the remote machine (left pane). In right pane look for the share name you added above. Right-click it and select "Pin to Quick Access".

3) The item in Quick Access should be named the same as the share name, which was my goal (no folder or file names were changed. Hope this helps.

Saturday, January 13, 2018 7:26 PM

I know this is an old post, but I have a much better solution to this than what I've found online (creating symbolic links).

  1. Create a new Library named how you want the shortcut to appear
  2. Go to the Properties of this new Library and add your intended target folder
  3. Change the library icon, if you wish
  4. Right-click on this new Library and choose 'Pin to Quick Access'

Granted, this will now add each 'shortcut' you wish to add to Quick Access to the Libraries section, but it's easy enough to simply hide the Libraries in Windows Explorer and utilize only Quick Access. Hope this helps, because it drove me nuts trying to find a solution to this Microsoft-created (for no damn reason) problem.

Thanks so much for taking time to post this. It works great for what I wanted!!

Thursday, January 25, 2018 10:09 PM

On some of my short Quick Access shortcuts, I can right-click on it, go to Properties, and change the name right there on the General tab. But a most recent location I added to the quick access won't let me do that.

Friday, February 23, 2018 6:19 AM | 2 votes

oops - pressed the wrong button sorry...

here is a proposed answer to the issue, using a different Windows Explorer feature...instead of using the Quick Links or Quick Access method in Explorer, use the Easy Access option as follows...

- Open Windows Explorer

- on the Home ribbon, click on Easy Access then click on Map a Drive (don't worry, you won't actually map a drive)

- In the Map Network Drive dialogue window, click on the "Connect to a website that..." link at the bottom of the screen

- Click through the wizard screen until it asks you to paste in the URL you want to connect to

- click Next... and then you get to call it whatever you want :-)

- after completing the above... the Easy Access link is displayed in Windows Explorer under the This PC icon.

hope that help someone :)

Thursday, March 1, 2018 2:49 PM

I'm really impressed how Microsoft will spend the resources on someone to monitor and make ridiculously petty comments on how a post is marked but won't offer any hope of a solution.

And I wouldn't plan on seeing them fix this, since they still haven't fixed the problem with the excel screen freezing after unlocking Pane views.

That's been around since 2005.

Thursday, March 1, 2018 3:07 PM

THANK YOU!!  It's great that users can rely on each other to fix problems Microsoft creates and can't be bothered addressing.  You wouldn't know how to fix Excel Freeze Pane locking the display when you change a filter, would you?  That's been around since 2005.

I really like Win 10 (and I'm a tried and true Apple FanBoy) since I got a Windows 10 tablet (I'm a cheap Apple Fanboy).  I really love Tiles.  Too bad I can't use Tiles on Win 10 Desktop without losing the basic purpose of Windows - having multiple applications open at the same time that I can both view and use.  I can have two side by side, oh boy!  Really useful on a 27" screen.  I may as well go back to a 12" monitor.

Microsoft finally gets things right with Windows 8.1, then goes BACKWARD because whiney users don't like to have to make one change in the default settings so they can use the 1980's technology interface.

Monday, March 5, 2018 2:21 AM

woo hoo! this appears to be the solution for me! and it's hardly convoluted! just setting up new work machine and astounded at how many workarounds i have to seek out to get back the functionality i had with windows 7....

Wednesday, March 14, 2018 7:52 PM

I think its kind of ridiculous that we have to map the library first as a network drive and name it how we like, then pin it to Quick Access. To train users on how to perform these steps is a headache. Any tech savvy person can do this easily but outside of that people do not like taking all of these steps and are confused.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018 8:07 PM

This still changes the name of the original folder.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018 8:11 PM

And this workaround only works for a small number of libraries. We'll have users that have more libraries to connect to than the alphabet would allow!  We have dozens of project sites with the same template used, so all document libraries have the same logical and URL name.  As of the latest release of Win 10 updates, renaming items in Quick Access still renames the original folder.  Doh!  Workarounds won't be marked as an answer ;)

Wednesday, March 14, 2018 11:11 PM

This has already been fixed right?  You just right click on the Quick Access Link in question, go to properties, then change the name/description on the general tab.  This should update the description of the quick access link.

Thursday, March 15, 2018 5:49 PM

just tried this and it renames the original folder. 

Thursday, March 22, 2018 4:22 AM

Absolutely ridiculous.  I learned to greatly value 'Favorites', but by not being able to rename the links, Microsoft has rendered 'Quick Access' completely useless for anything but the most rudimentary function.  What were they thinking?

Monday, June 4, 2018 3:29 PM

Absolutely ridiculous.  I learned to greatly value 'Favorites', but by not being able to rename the links, Microsoft has rendered 'Quick Access' completely useless for anything but the most rudimentary function.  What were they thinking?

They weren't :)

Thursday, June 28, 2018 7:47 PM

Good workaround.  Doesn't work on non indexed network drives.

Thursday, June 28, 2018 8:19 PM

What I do is create a folder anywhere, name it something, then in that folder put a shortcut to the path.  You can rename it in there.  Then put the top level folder in Quick Access.  Used to be able to just create a folder on desktop and rename it and put it in Quick Access but they took that away.  If they see this they'll take that away.  Really dumb.

Friday, July 20, 2018 10:10 PM

Solution found here:

https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-re-add-favorites-to-navigation-pane-of-windows-10-explorer/

Will edit your registry keys to add favorites back and you can disable quick access as well if you want.

Friday, November 30, 2018 4:12 PM

I found a rather clunky solution :

Under each user account go to the documents folder and create a folder named as you's like to see under quick access. Pin that to quick access. In that folder create a shortcut to the folder you would like to open on the network.

This is not a great solution as it requires 2 clicks, but it works.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019 6:18 PM

This worked perfectly! I first added a network folder called "Favorites". Then added all others and moved them there. Now it works "just like" in win7.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019 8:03 PM

Yep, that's the workaround and requires a few extra steps.  I'm hoping Microsoft is able to make changes to Quick Access to restore the original functionality we had with Windows 7.  It's still a pain-point years later.

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 7:56 PM

Bummed to find this is still a problem with no built in solution.

Tuesday, June 25, 2019 7:28 PM

Agreed. 2019. They will not fix this deficiency. :(

Thursday, July 25, 2019 4:41 PM

Nope. Changing the name in the General tab for a Quick access link changes the Location's folder name.

Friday, August 2, 2019 8:28 PM | 1 vote

I just upgraded from Win7 to Win10.  I copied my links from c:/Users/me/Links to the same location in Win10 and dragged this to Quick Access.  It's an extra step but I get to keep all the favorites I had.  Thanks MS.

Friday, August 2, 2019 8:36 PM

Yep, this is just the workaround recommended by Teemo Tang.  We're still waiting for Microsoft to correct this functionality so we can get the original usefulness back.  The pain still remains.

Thursday, October 3, 2019 4:02 PM

That worked! (Thank you!)Now do you know how to get rid of the folders I don't want (3D Objects, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos, etc.) so I have a l can list like I used to have in Windows 7?

Tuesday, October 8, 2019 4:02 PM

Right clic the folder you want to rename->Properties->General tab->Replace the existing name in the upper field with the new name->Ok->BOOM!

Tuesday, October 8, 2019 4:12 PM

This is actually the original problem.  The folder name gets changed if the link in Quick Access is changed.  This should not be the case and MS hasn't fixed this since Windows 10 was released.  Ugh.

Thursday, November 28, 2019 12:50 PM

@gumby: The same result you get when you go to "This PC" and right-click and "Add a new network connection".

But really mapping a Network Connection to a letter is a possibility (but limited to the number of letters in the Alphabet... sad that we are still at this 1-Letter-Limitation for drives in the 21st century). After that you can rename that "drive" to whatever you want and then really Pin it to Quick access and there your selected name is shown.

Another quirky workaround, but mklink workaround doesn't work for the network drives I need to access.

I hate it that Win10 is interfering with the way I used to work on Win7.