Win Explorer

The Explorer file manager is used to view files as well as create, copy, move and delete files and folders. Also called "Windows Explorer" and "File Explorer," it displays the folder hierarchy in the left windowpane of all the internal drives and any connected external drives. To learn more about how files are organized, see Win Folder organization.

When you click on a folder in the left Explorer window, its content appears in the right window.

You can launch two or more instances of Explorer and drag and drop between them, although you can use Cut, Copy and Paste with only one instance of Explorer (see Win Copy/move files/folders). Following are the basic Explorer operations:

LAUNCH EXPLORER
Right click the Start menu, and select File Explorer, Open Windows Explorer or Explore, depending on Windows version.

DISPLAY CONTENTS OF A FOLDER
Click the folder in the left windowpane, and its contents are displayed in the right windowpane.

OPEN FOLDER IN A NEW WINDOW
To open a folder into a new window, right click the folder in the left windowpane and select Open in New Window (Win7, 8.1 and 10) or Open (XP).

DISPLAY NAMES OF SUBFOLDERS ("Expand the Tree")
A greater-than sign (Win10) or right-facing triangle (Win7 and 8.1) or a + sign in XP to the left of the folder means that the folder contains subfolders (other folders inside). Click the triangle or + sign to reveal the subfolders beneath, and the triangle becomes dark and points downward, or the + sign changes to a - sign.

DISPLAY CONTENTS OF A SUBFOLDER
Click once on the subfolder icon in the left window, or double click on the subfolder icon in the right side.

An Explorer Window

This is an Explorer view of a Windows 7 machine, which is similar in Win8.1 and 10. The arrows point to the triangles, which indicate that the folders contain subfolders. In this example, the contents of folder "n" are displayed in the right windowpane.

CREATE FOLDER
In the left window, click the drive or folder icon in which the new folder will be placed and select File/New/Folder. The new folder will be created at the bottom of the right window.

DELETE FILE OR FOLDER
Right click the file or folder icon and select Delete.

RENAME FILE OR FOLDER
Right click the file or folder icon and select Rename.

SWITCH DRIVES
Click the drive icon of the drive you want to change to.

COPY AND MOVE FILES AND FOLDERS
There are several ways to copy and move files and folders with Explorer. See Win Copy/move files/folders.

SELECT MULTIPLE FILES THAT ARE NOT IN ORDER
To select several icons that are not next to each other, hold the Ctrl key down and click the icons one at a time.

SELECT CONTIGUOUS FILES
To select several icons that are contiguous, click the first one and then hold the Shift key down and click the last one. You can also lasso them by clicking to the right of the file name on top or bottom and dragging to the diagonal corner. See Win Highlighting items for more detail.