How to Recover Folders at Top Disappeared from Quick Access?

Oops! Folders at top disappeared from Quick access

"I am experiencing a strange issue with pinned folders in Quick access in File Explorer since upgrading to windows 10. The folders that I have pinned to Quick access randomly disappear. I have spent quite a bit of time researching this problem but nothing changed."

Why do some files not appear in Quick access?

Quick access is a prominent feature in Windows File Explorer. As its name implies, you could open the target item at a very fast speed from Quick access since it records the files/folders you are working on or opened recently and displays them in the sidebar.

Usually, the items in Quick access are grabbed by the system itself or added manually and they will be classified into two groups: "Frequent folders" and "Recent files".

However, some users have reported that their folders at top disappeared from Quick access suddenly. Actually, this is not a rare matter. It might result from various reasons, for instance:

★ If you didn't pin any files or folders to Quick access and idled the computer for a period of time, Quick access will lose the record because it can only keep the item for a couple of days.
★ If the problem you faced is Quick access pins disappeared, you might have accidentally deleted the folders or files in File Explorer.
★ If you are not in the above two situations, things go wrong. It may be caused by performing misoperation, incorrect settings, or File Explorer errors like File Explorer not responding.

Whatever causes this problem, you could refer to the content below to learn how to fix it or recover the files if they are deleted.

What to do if folders at top disappeared from Quick access?

Once you find your Quick access folders disappeared, don't worry, it's very easy to get your folders back as normal. Here are three methods you can apply.

Option 1. Disable Quick access and enable it again

First of all, go to check whether your Quick access is enabled. Some errors are likely to cause the Folder Options to malfunction. Thus, try disabling Quick access and enabling it again to make it run normally.

Step 1. Press "Windows + E" to open File Explorer. On the left panel, right-click on "Quick Access" and select "Options".

Step 2. Under the "General" tab, uncheck the two options: "Show recently used files in Quick access" and "Show frequently used folders in Quick access" and click "OK" or "Apply". 

Then, back to this step, tick the two options and confirm the operation.

If your folders at top disappeared from Quick access show up then, stop here. If not, move on to the next method.

Option 2. Enable Recent folders to pin folders to Quick access

As we mentioned before, you can quickly access your folders from "Frequent folders" and "Recent files". Thus, if Quick access pins disappeared, you can also make use of these two functions to pin your recently used folders to Quick access manually.

Step 1. Go to "This PC" or "File Explorer", expand "Quick access" and find the Recent folders.

If there is no "Recent folders" icon, or you find recent folders missing, don't worry, you can try inputting shell:::{22877a6d-37a1-461a-91b0-dbda5aaebc99} in the File Explorer directory box to open it.

Step 2. Then choose "Pin to Quick Access" to pin the recent folders to Quick Access.

By doing so, you could easily recover folders at top disappeared from Quick access.

Option 3. Reset Quick access folders in File Explorer

Resetting is an available solution to various problems on a Windows computer. For example, you may have the experience of resetting Windows 11 to its factory settings to get rid of some tricky issues.

Step 1. Open File Explorer, right-click on "Quick Access" and select "Options".

Step 2. Go to the "View" tab and click "Reset Folders" under Folder views.

Then, you could solve the Quick access folders disappeared issue.

How to recover folders at top disappeared from Quick access?

The methods above are very easy, right? But there is a situation where you cannot handle the given solutions. That is when your folder is deleted or lost accidentally. What should you do in such a case?

The easiest way is to ask a professional Windows data recovery tool for help. AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, an all-in-one disk manager for Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista users, would be your best choice.

Its efficient and convenient features have attracted millions of users around the world: It supports recovering data from internal or external SSD/HDD/USB/SD cards and retrieving data in various types including movies, images, zip files, office documents, and so on.

Now, down the demo version to experience the easy steps to recover folders at top disappeared from Quick access.

Step 1. Install and launch this AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. In the main interface, click "Recover" > "Recover data" at the top toolbar.

Note: If your missing folders are stored on a deleted partition, you can click "Partition Recovery Wizard" in this step to recover the lost partition first.

Step 2. Choose the source drive (where the disappeared folders were saved initially) and click "Start Scan".

Step 3. Once the scan is completed, all deleted files, recycle bin, and other missing files will be displayed. Input the filenames, extensions, size, type, date modified, path, etc to search for the lost files. The more information you provide, the faster and more accurate the scanning process will be.

Step 4. Go to "Deleted files" or "Recycle Bin", locate the original location, choose the files you want to restore, and click "Recover x files".

Step 5. Select a folder path on your PC to save the recovered data so that you can know where to see the recovered file easily. Then, the recovery process will start.

Conclusion

Folders at top disappeared from Quick access? This post has covered three common ways to get you out of this issue. Hope at least one of them is helpful to you. If Quick access folders disappeared due to the loss of target folders, you can also find the corresponding solution - getting the folders back via AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

In addition, there is the Server edition for Windows Server users who are involved in the same case.