Windows 10: Display full path for special folders

Hi,

I recently migrated to Win10 Home Edition x64 from Win7. One thing that is absolutely maddening to me is the inability of seeing the full path in the navigation bar for special folders like "Downloads", "Desktop", "Images" and many more where just their names are displayed in the navigation bar.






However in Win7, clicking on that name instantly displayed and selected the full path (eg: D:\User\Downloads and not just Downloads). This is what I want to get back!








I like to have a few of these folders in the quick access area (Favorites in Win7). I tried deleting Downloads from the quick access and navigating to it by clicking-opening folders instead of just clicking on its link. When I do it this way, the path is correctly displayed (see previous pic). But if I pin it to the quick access, and then click on that link, it immediately reverts to only "Downloads".

This is stupid, I want to be able to know at all times where I am (I have 2 separate physical drives), and be able to copy the path to paste it in another program for example.

I haven't been able to find a solution so far ("Displaying full path in title bar" doesn't work for these special folders and is pointless since other folders already have their full path displayed in the navigation bar), please help!

:)

 

File explorer not displaying complete path for certain folders on Windows 10.

Original Title: How to make Windows Explorer display the full folder path for copy/paste

To quickly get the full path to a file in previous Windows versions, you could browse to it in Windows Explorer, then copy the path from the text box near the top of the screen. You could paste that path into whatever application you were using to quickly
browse to the same spot.

In Windows 10, this still works, but only some of the time. For example, if you browse to a folder in your Dropbox, it will work fine. But if you browse to your "Downloads" folder, where earlier Windows versions might have displayed: c:\users\john\downloads,
Windows 10 just says "Downloads", which is useless as a path to a file.

Is there a setting to revert this behaviour to displaying a full file path?

W

 

File explorer not displaying complete path for certain folders on Windows 10.

Hi,



It is by design, the path for downloads does not show the full path in Windows 10, it just shows downloads. You will have to create a new folder and save downloads, then go to
view > folder options > Change folder and search
options > click on View > Click on the option to display the full path in the title bar.



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Thank you.

 

If you go to View on the Ribbon display and then select Options/Change folder and search options/then View
Here, check Display the full path in the title bar.

It will then show as below.

 

Hi pbcopter,

thanks for the quick answer! Unfortunately I had already tried this tip (see last part of my lengthy post). On my computer it does work for the other folders, but not for the special ones... Just in case: my Win10 Home Edition x64 build is 1607 and there are no more updates available. Do you have the same version?

I tried it again because you never know, but the result was the same: no full path for special folders. (Windows is in French here but I can assure you it's the exact same option you mentioned )

 

I am using Windows 10 Pro version 1703 15063.483, know as the Creators Update. As you can see from my screen shot, that it displays the full path to the "special folders"
correctly on the title bar, desktop, downloads, etc. I don't know why yours is not showing the same.

 

That may be why then... Windows asked me to review a few privacy settings saying that it would in the near future update to the Creator's update. I guess they fixed it there, I'll wait until the update comes through and update the post here.

 

Hasn't fixed it for me. I have creators update and it is the same as you.




It isn't clear from the screenshot but perhaps @pbcopter browsed to C:\Users\Paul\Downloads?

If I do that it shows the path but not if I open it from Quick Access or from under This PC

 

The Title Bar will only show the 'breadcrumb trail' if invoked from the User folder, the rest are just links attributed to 'This PC'.

 

@Ix07, you are correct, I rarely use the quick access and the full path to the special folders in the title bar does not seem to work when you go from there. Thanks for posting.

Paul
PS: My fathers is from Hungary. Came here when he was 3 months old.

 

@lx07 Right, good thinking!

@Edwin Are you saying that there's no way to tell Windows that the folder pinned to Quick access is the real physical folder and not the virtual one/link?

 

You can identify (and change) what actual folder the link refers to by right click > Properties and look on the Location tab if that is what you mean.

 

Yep, that's what I already did since they originally all pointed to C: which is my small SSD.

I guess I'll just have to deal with this annoying fact for now, until someone finds a workaround or they actually fix this in an update...