Windows 11 file explorer is slow, lagging, hangs!

Anonymous
2022-11-06T07:07:24+00:00

Hi,

I have a very strong PC with Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe, Intel i7-9700K, 32GB Memory and ASUS ROG Strix Z390-H Gaming.
When my PC was on Windows 10 there was no problem with File Explorer but after upgrading to Windows 11 I am facing a problem with file explorer slow, lagging, hangs even when just renaming a file.
Only full PC restart is solving the problem for a short time.

How to solve this problem on windows 11 please?

Thanks,
AG

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

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Anonymous
2022-11-28T14:17:19+00:00

I also experienced Lags with the Explorer:

  1. On Windows 10, i could solve them by removing external file-drives (SMB) from Quick-Access. I created a folder with Links to the drives instead and explorer was fast again. Probably the explorer tried to connect to these drives and for some reason failed, even though the connection was up and working.
  2. On Windows 11 on a new computer i have again troubles with the explorer, this time i think it is due to a wrong/old account which is no longer active:
    Image The problems came with the "Home"-Button, which was added at some point. Also the "Please sign in" only shows when selecting the "Home"-Button.

This might also be related to an account i am unable to remove:
Image
Clicking on 'Manage' opens the login-page for the first account and i can not find the old account in the first account to remove it.

Can your problem also be associated with one of the issues above?

Does anyone know how to solve the second issue by e.g. disabling the "Home" button, changing the account in the explorer or removing a no longer existing old account?

Updated Info / what i use:

  1. Don't use mapped Drives oder External Folders in Quick-Access. Keep all pinned-directories pointing to local files / folders. Instead, save them as files / links:

Image

  1. Disable OneDrive.exe in StartUp-Apps. If this still does not help, completely disable or remove onedrive: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-disable-or-uninstall-onedrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0 
  2. 'Home' as startup-folder seems to also be slow, change it: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-set-start-location-file-explorer-windows-10/
    Image

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-07-06T17:24:49+00:00

    your suggestions are complete nonsense, why are you even here?

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-07-02T16:11:54+00:00

    This worked for me. Clicked on 3 dots at top of explorer then OPTIONS then General then clear file explorer history. Don't know how long it will last but so far it solved my problem having to wait for home screen in explorer. Thanks

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-06-26T10:39:46+00:00

    I had the same problem here. Not a huge lag but opening folders and so on, took around 2 seconds before opening. Even in Safe Mode. Tried everything I could find but nothing helped.

    Tried some File Explorer third party apps and those were just fine: opening was almost immediate. So it's really a file explorer bug.
    But I like Windows Explorer (yes, really ;) ), so yesterday I did an inplace upgrade where I kept my settings and programs ... and Windows File Explorer is now okay and fast again.

    And it almost had no effect on my settings before the upgrade. I only had to remove some apps like Teams which were (of course) installed again.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-06-21T23:12:28+00:00

    Unfortunately with the current updates mine is still very very slow and does not work well. If I click new folder. It does not show the new folder until I press F5 several seconds later. Then at this time I have to rename it to what I want. If I copy and paste folders they show some of the time other times I have to press F5 to see the change and this is on a system dual NVMe drives and no spinners at all. This is very frustrating to use.

    Not sure if OneDrive plays a part in this as the icon for synchronizing is almost always showing activity. I have a 25TB limit on my university account and it has several million files. I tried to exclude some folders from local sync but not a great deal.

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