Microsoft talk about the Quick access features in Window 10

With Windows 10 Microsoft are adding big headline features like the new start menu and Cortana but they are also working on small tweaks that make Windows 10 easier to use.

In a new post on the Windows Blog Microsoft have detailed the new Quick access features in File Explorer. It is a simple feature where recent used file show up in the explorer for quick access, the file appear automatically and can be from the local drive or the cloud. It replaces the Favourites feature in Windows 8.1 and makes sense given how most people never bothered with the favourites and Quick access will work automatically.

More and more of our users are storing their files in more and more places. Whether that’s in cloud locations like OneDrive and Dropbox at home, or across network shares, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint at work, the problems introduced are the same – it gets harder to access those files quickly, since users are having to drill into multiple locations. With that backdrop in mind, we set about building a feature called Quick access in File Explorer to solve some of those problems. In previous versions of Windows, we had a feature called Favorites that allowed users to pin folders that they cared about to a single place. However, very few users were taking advantage of that. What we’ve done with Quick access is expanded on the ability to pin folders by automatically showing you folders that you frequently used (so you don’t have to remember to pin them), and showing you files that you’ve recently accessed (since we’ve found that many users re-access their files). Quick access will become more personal and relevant to you as you use Windows, thereby speeding up the everyday task of getting back to the files you care about.

The nice thing is that you can easily remove items from the list if you don’t want it to show and you can reorder items on the list. Also with the latest builds you can drag folders to the Quick access bar for easy access. You can also turn off quick access if you like and have it default to This PC view instead of Quick access.