Is it possible programmatically add folders to the Windows 10 Quick Access panel in the explorer window?

Question

Apparently Microsoft has (sort of) replaced the \"Favorites\" Windows explorer item with the Quick Access item. But I haven\'t been able to find a way to programmatically ad

Answer 1

Maybe it will help someone until MS releases an API. I ran procmon and it seems that these registry keys are involved

Pin to Quick access:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\pintohome

When unpin:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PinnedFrequentPlace\shell\unpinfromhome\command

Also this resource is used when pinning: (EDIT1: can't find it any longer..)

AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\{SOME_SORT_OF_GUID}.automaticDestinations-ms

You can try opening it with 7-zip, there are several files in there which fit the destination

EDIT2: I found running this in the 'Run' opens up Quick access:

shell:::{679F85CB-0220-4080-B29B-5540CC05AAB6}

Answer 2

void PinToHome(const std::wstring& folder)
{
    ShellExecute(0, L"pintohome", folder.c_str(), L"", L"", SW_HIDE);
}

that was the easy part, still unable to do an unpinfromhome

Answer 3

Yohan Ney's answer for pinning an item is correct. To unpin an item you can do this:

$QuickAccess = New-Object -ComObject shell.application 
($QuickAccess.Namespace("shell:::{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6}").Items() | where {$_.Path -eq "C:\Temp"}).InvokeVerb("unpinfromhome")

Here's a script I wrote to make pin/unpin a little easier:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Set-QuickAccess-117e9a89

Answer 4

I was able to get this to work in C# using shell32 based on the information in this post and some info on shell32 from this post https://stackoverflow.com/a/19035049

You need to add a reference to "Microsoft Shell Controls and Automation".

This will add a link

Type shellAppType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Shell.Application");
Object shell = Activator.CreateInstance(shellAppType);
Shell32.Folder2 f = (Shell32.Folder2)shellAppType.InvokeMember("NameSpace", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, shell, new object[] { "C:\\temp" });
f.Self.InvokeVerb("pintohome");

This will remove a link by name

Type shellAppType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Shell.Application");
Object shell = Activator.CreateInstance(shellAppType);
Shell32.Folder2 f2 = (Shell32.Folder2)shellAppType.InvokeMember("NameSpace", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, shell, new object[] { "shell:::{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6}" });
Console.WriteLine("item count: " + f2.Items().Count);
foreach (FolderItem fi in f2.Items())
{
    Console.WriteLine(fi.Name);
    if (fi.Name == "temp")
    {
        ((FolderItem)fi).InvokeVerb("unpinfromhome");
    }
}

Answer 5

I like Johan's answer but I added a little bit to make not remove some of the items that were already in there. I had a ton pinned in there by accident I must have selected pin folder or something to quick access.

$QuickAccess = New-Object -ComObject shell.application 
$okItems = @("Desktop","Downloads","Documents","Pictures","iCloud Photos","iCloud Drive","PhpstormProjects","Wallpapers 5","Videos", "Schedules for testing")
($QuickAccess.Namespace("shell:::{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6}").Items() | where {$_.name -notin $okItems}).InvokeVerb("unpinfromhome");

Answer 6

Building on what others have said... This allows you to remove all pinned folders (not just all/recent folders/items):

$o = new-object -com shell.application
$($o.Namespace("shell:::{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6}").Items() | where { $_.IsFolder -eq "True" -and ($($_.Verbs() | Where-Object {$_.Name -in "Unpin from Quick access"}) -ne $null)}).InvokeVerb("unpinfromhome")

I needed this so I could backup / restore my list of Quick Access links quickly. So I put this at the top of my script (to remove all pinned items, then the rest of the script re-adds them. This ensures the order is correct.

And yes, I'm sure there's a better syntax for the above code.