While I've had my fair share of problems with Windows 11 as my primary desktop operating system for years now, I've also had plenty of good things to say about it. Still, when it comes to software that largely works, it's the minor annoyances that tend to really drive one up the wall, and somehow, File Explorer has been behind a lot of them for me.

One major annoyance I had with Windows 11 was how, a handful of times, out of the blue, File Explorer would decide to take much longer than usual to open up a folder. When you've spared no expense on a blazing fast CPU and SSD, it's understandable to be quick to anger when something like that happens. Turns out, it was because File Explorer was trying to "help" me organize better, as it has been for a quarter of a century now, since the Windows XP era.

File Explorer's Folder Type Discovery feature causes occasional stutters

Its heart is in the right place, though

Today, if you were to open a folder with a huge number of files inside, like a game folder you're trying to mod through OptiScaler, you'll realize where the problem starts. Automatic Folder Type Discovery scans each file to try and decide what view to set, but when the files inside are large and varied, it takes a couple of seconds too long to open. That's what you can always turn off, because there's just no need to know the duration of a movie or a song, and if you really do, you can always just inspect the file through Properties.

As such, this feature, while it does try its best, is the cause behind the occasional File Explorer stutter, and why it takes a bit too long sometimes for your folders to open. Thankfully, it's rather easy to turn off, and ever since I disabled it, I haven't experienced a single time File Explorer took too long to open a folder in Windows 11 for me.

What's actually going on under the hood?

This feature profiles your files every single time you open a folder

Every time you open a folder, File Explorer actively samples the contents inside — file types, extensions, even metadata. Then, it tries to classify the folder into one of a few predefined templates such as General Items, Documents, Pictures, Music, or Videos. If enough files match a certain pattern, Windows assigns that template and adjusts the layout accordingly.

When you open a folder full of screenshots, and it is already set in thumbnail view, or when you open a folder with all your movies for your Plex server and the folder view already shows you the duration of the movie, it's the Automatic Folder Type Discovery working behind the scenes. It reads a folder's content for you and sets the folder view accordingly to help organize things in a cleaner manner. And I won't lie, nine times out of ten, it does its job, but the problem here is that said job is now pretty much redundant.

The catch, however, lies in how it gets there. This isn’t a cached, one-and-done decision. In many cases, especially with mixed or unusually large folders, Explorer re-evaluates things on the fly. This means that it will poke through files, read metadata, and essentially do all the extra work every single time you open the folder. Now, on older hard drives, this used to be masked by already slow access times. On modern SSDs, though, that extra overhead sticks out like a sore thumb.

A quick registry edit turns off this legacy Windows feature

It takes less than a couple of minutes

To turn off this 25-year-old feature, you'll need to make a small edit in the Windows Registry Editor. For that, press Win + R, and in the Run dialog box that pops up, type regedit and hit Enter. This will open up the Registry Editor. Of course, messing around with the Windows Registry isn’t without risk — one wrong tweak can break things in ways that aren’t always easy to undo. It’s always a good idea to back up (or export) your entire registry before you start changing anything.

Once you're in the Registry Editor, click on File → Export. This will open up the Export Registry File window, where you will then select "All" under the Export Range option at the bottom. Then, simply pick a location to save your backup of the entire registry, and hit Save. Windows Registry Editor will then save and backup your entire registry before you make any tweaks or changes to it. This is always good practice, and should never be skipped.

With that out of the way, head to the following path in the Registry Editor: HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Classes > Local Settings > Software > Microsoft > Windows > Shell > Bags > AllFolders > Shell. Since that will require over ten clicks, you can simply go ahead and paste the following address in the address bar over at the top —

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell

Once you're inside the final "Shell" folder, right-click in the blank space and select New → String Value. Name it FolderType and hit Enter (make sure you capitalize it exactly as written). Double-click on the newly-created FolderType string value, and under the Value Data input field, type in NotSpecified and hit OK.

A quick reboot later, Automatic Folder Type Discovery will be disabled

In the end, you can either simply restart your PC, or reboot the File Explorer. For that, hit Ctrl + Shift + Escape or right-click on the Taskbar to bring up the Windows Task Manager. In the Processes tab, scroll down into the Windows Processes section, find Windows Explorer, right-click on it, and select Restart.

After that's done, Automatic Folder Type Discovery on your PC will be a thing of the past. Now, it goes without saying that disabling this legacy feature in Windows 11 isn't somehow going to make Windows Explorer exponentially faster. On our modern SSDs, it's already going the fastest it can. What it does achieve, however, is getting rid of those occasional stutters and times when a folder takes a handful of seconds to open (especially when someone's watching your screen, somehow). Ever since I turned it off, those one-in-ten occasions have all but disappeared.