Remove User Folders from This PC in Windows 10 File Explorer

How to Remove the User Folders from This PC in Windows 10 File Explorer?

The This PC Windows File Explorer view in Windows 10 displays six User Folders along with all of the Drives, Partitions, Devices, and Network Locations. These folders take a lot of space on your main File Explorer window. There is no point in using them at their default location when you can easily access all of these folders from the Navigation pane using the Libraries or the Quick Access feature. They use a lot less space in the Navigation pane.

In order to hide the User Folders from This PC (Windows File Explorer), we need to access the Registry Strings of these folders, and then change the Value data of ThisPCPolicy Registry Strings from Show to Hide.

Remove User Folders from This PC in Windows 10

Remove the Documents folder from This PC

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 Documents folder location Key in Windows Registry Editor.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{f42ee2d3-909f-4907-8871-4c22fc0bf756}\PropertyBag

Step 3: Double-click the ThisPCPolicy Registry String. This will open the Edit String box for this Registry String.

Step 4: In the Edit String box, change the Value data from Show to Hide.

Step 5: Click OK.

Step 6: Now, close your previously opened Windows File Explorer windows (if there are any), and start one again, you’ll notice that the Documents folder is gone.

Remove Music, Pictures, Videos, Downloads folders from This PC

Follow the same steps used to remove the Documents folder.

Step 1: Navigate to the respective Registry locations of each of these folders.

Step 2: Change the Value data from Show to Hide.

Step 3: Click OK.

Registry Locations of Windows User Folders

Music

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{a0c69a99-21c8-4671-8703-7934162fcf1d}\PropertyBag

Pictures

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{0ddd015d-b06c-45d5-8c4c-f59713854639}\PropertyBag

Videos

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{35286a68-3c57-41a1-bbb1-0eae73d76c95}\PropertyBag

Downloads

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{7d83ee9b-2244-4e70-b1f5-5393042af1e4}\PropertyBag

All of the folders except Desktop follow the same process. The Desktop folder does not have the ThisPCPolicy Registry String; we have to create it manually.

Remove the Desktop folder from This PC

Now, let us first create the ThisPCPolicy Registry String, and then remove the Desktop folder.

Step 1: Open Registry Editor.

Step 2: Navigate to the Desktop folder location Key in Windows Registry Editor.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641}\PropertyBag

Step 3: Right-click on the empty space on the right pane of the Windows Registry Editor window. Click New, then String Value.

Step 4: Click on the newly created Registry String, and then press F2 to rename the String.

Step 5: Rename the String to ThisPCPolicy.

Step 6: Double-click ThisPCPolicy String to open its Edit String dialog box. Type Hide in the Value data: field. Click OK.

Step 7: Check you Windows File Explorer again; the Desktop folder is also gone. All of the User Folders are now gone.

Rename the Registry Values from Hide to Show to display User Folders again in This PC.

Check How to Remove the 3D Objects Folder here:

Remove the 3D Objects Folder from This PC in Windows 10 File Explorer

6 thoughts on “Remove User Folders from This PC in Windows 10 File Explorer”

  1. Hi,
    Thanks for the detailed explanation. I was able to find the folders you have mentioned above but there are couple of personal folders which I had added which I no longer want. I don’t recall how I had added those to “This PC” > Folders but unable to remove them.
    Any tips?

    Reply
    • Hi,

      You can right-click on the selected folder(s) and check the options listed there. There should be option to unpin or remove the folder(s) from that location. I hope it works for you.

      Thanks for the comment 🙂

      Reply
  2. Excellent explanation. Nice and easy to follow.
    You might want to update it to mention to people that they can just copy-and-paste the registry entries from the article directly into the bar of RegEdit, and they don’t then have to work their way through the tree or do a search, which could save an awful lot of time.

    Reply

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