File explorer not responding in Windows 11. It opens up but becomes unresponsive when you click anywhere.

Anonymous
2024-01-20T21:46:04+00:00

I tried every solution available on the internet to make file explorer responsive. However, it is not working. I open up file explorer, it opens. Now, when I click any folder or any icon or try to do search, it becomes unresponsive. I have spent days trying to fix this and I am very frustrated with this. Can any Samaritan

help me with this?

Kind Regards,

Sajan

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments

54 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Anonymous
    2025-02-04T03:17:07+00:00

    This video worked! Thanks so much, i was so scared! This quickly resolved the issue and its working now!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2025-01-31T17:35:57+00:00

    Thanks so much Bülent_791, this is what finally got my explorer working again!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2025-01-19T10:22:10+00:00

    Open task manager, right click com surrogate, click end task. You may also need to do the same with explorer/windows explorer.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2025-01-14T13:55:05+00:00

    I've recently had the same issue (unresponsive File Explorer, M365 desktop apps). I tried the solutions above and they didn't work. I discovered the problem was with Windows Search. Microsoft has a page explaining how to resolve issues with Windows Search article here.

    I used solution 5: "Reset Windows Search".

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  5. Anonymous
    2025-01-13T16:27:45+00:00

    File Explorer took 23 seconds to become responsive on my high-end Windows 11 machine. The many solutions offered in this thread so far had no effect. The solution was to uninstall the Google Drive desktop app.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments