Windows 10: Pictures and Documents Folders will not appear in quick access

A few months back I got a new PC, and in the process of trying to prevent onedrive from messing with my files its full and currently gives me an obnoxious notification that it can't sync if i don't have it disabled, i had to delete my Pictures/Documents folders and recreate them. However, I was unable to get them to reappear on the quick access sidebar in my file explorer. As seen below the folders are still there and usable, I just have to manually navigate to them every single time. Right clicking the folders and selecting 'Pin to Quick Access' has no effect, which is strange because pinni

:)

 

Quick Access not searching Pictures folder

Summary, that last suggestion didn't work.

• I moved the pictures to another folder temporarily.

• Then I tried to remove the Pictures folder with option one at Add or Remove Folders from This PC in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials. Even after rebooting, the Pictures folder remained.
• So I tried using option two. Same thing: reboot >> Pictures folder still there.

• Since there were no troubleshooting steps for this scenario, just for the heck of it, I ran through the restore steps. Copied some pictures into the Pictures folder, ran a Quick Access search and initial problem remains: Searching all of QA doesn't find any files in Pictures folder, running search on just the Pictures folder does. I want to run a global search and find matching files in any/all of the Documents, Music, Videos, and Pictures folders.

That article dates from 2015 and I'm guessing is out of date. I hope it didn't create potential future problems in my registry.

Bottom line: I'm still looking for a fix.

 

File Explorer W11; Restore Pictures Folder to Quick Access

To restore the Pictures folder to Quick Access in Windows 11 File Explorer, you can follow these steps:

1. Open File Explorer by clicking on the folder icon in the taskbar or by pressing Windows + E on your keyboard.
   
2. In the left pane of File Explorer, right-click on Quick Access and select Options.
   
3. In the Folder Options window, select the General tab.
   
4. Under Privacy, make sure that "Show recently used files in Quick access" and "Show frequently used folders in Quick access" are both checked.
   
5. Click on the Clear button next to "Clear File Explorer history" to remove any history that might be preventing the Pictures folder from appearing in Quick Access.
   
6. Click on the Restore Defaults button to restore the default settings for Quick Access.
   
7. Click on Apply and then on OK to save the changes.
   
8. If the Pictures folder still does not appear in Quick Access, you can manually add it by navigating to the folder in File Explorer, right-clicking on it, and selecting Pin to Quick Access.
   

If these steps do not work, you can try creating a new user account and see if the Pictures folder appears in Quick Access for the new user. If it does, you can copy the contents of your old user account's Pictures folder to the new user account's Pictures folder and continue using the new account.

Let me know if it helps.

 

Quick access - files and folders dropping from Quick access

After poking around for some time I have still not been able to resolve this issue. I reset folders, settings etc. I rebuilt my "Quick Access" list after trying a few of these solutions. It appeared to be working but overnight (with no activity on my computer, as far as I know) my Quick Access list reset to the default of just Desktop, Downloads, Documents and Pictures. There are recent folders listed also.

Recall I already reloaded the system once. I'd rather not do that again.

Any other suggestions or pointers?

Thanks.