How to Remove Duplicate USB Drives in Windows 10 File Explorer?

Fix Removable Drives Appearing Twice in Windows File Explorer

Windows displays two instances of the currently connected removable drives/devices in the Navigation pane of its File Explorer. First instance is in the Drive grouping that lists all of the internal and external disks and partitions. The second one is a separate dedicated instance for each removable drive/device. Multiple instances take up unnecessary space on you Navigation pane. Follow these steps to get rid of the duplicate USB drive icons in the Windows Navigation pane.

Remove Duplicate USB Drive Icons in Windows Navigation pane

Step 1: Press Windows + R keys together to open the Run dialog box. Type regedit in the text field, and then click OK to open Registry Editor.

Step 2: Navigate to the following key in Windows Registry Editor.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\DelegateFolders

Step 3: Under the DelegateFolders key, you’ll find the following subkey.

{F5FB2C77-0E2F-4A16-A381-3E560C68BC83}

Delete this subkey.

Step 4: Check the File Explorer again; you’ll notice that now there is only one instance of your removable drives.

Step 5: In some third-party software, this may still be visible in the Browse window. If that happens, edit the following Registry Value as well.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\DelegateFolders

Step 6: Delete the following subkey under the DelegateFolder key.

{F5FB2C77-0E2F-4A16-A381-3E560C68BC83}

That’s it.

If you want to re-enable duplicate view of USB drives then reverse the process i.e., create new keys on both of the locations from where you deleted them previously. Rename both keys {F5FB2C77-0E2F-4A16-A381-3E560C68BC83}, the same name that both of the deleted keys had.

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