Hi,
Clearing file explorer history did not solved the problem for me.
I was forced to delete all files in Downloads folder using CMD.
Windows 11 hangs when entering Downloads folder
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(137.6, 40%, 23%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
AG
521
Reputation points
Windows 11 hangs when entering Downloads folder and "Working on it..." is displayed.
When trying to close the window I am receiving the message "Windows explorer is not responding"
I have already tried
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
sfc /scannow
Full Disk Cleanup with system files.
Thanks,
AG
Windows for business | Windows Client for IT Pros | User experience | Other
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Reza-Ameri 45,891 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator2021-11-23T16:01:27.937+00:00 Are you facing the same issue with other locations like Downloads?
Are you using SSD or HDD hard drive? -
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(217.60000000000002, 50%, 31%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EJV%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Jules Von Doom 1 Reputation point2023-01-02T21:20:37.297+00:00 I uninstalled an app that was accessing an incomplete download, it was VLC player. This fixed my problem completely.
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Marten uivesteyn 5 Reputation points2023-09-24T11:40:00.1+00:00 Fixed after a ton of no working solutions... Moved the download folder location to actual desktop then remove download icon from desktop
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Alfonso Nava 25 Reputation points2024-01-11T18:30:31.57+00:00 Experienced similar issue, and came to this document, and partially found an answer. My setup for downloads is on an independent SDD partition, so my Downloads location is not the default one on "C:\users\your name\downloads". When attempting to navigate to Downloads from the quick access element on file explorer, it was stuck, but when navigating from "Z:\downloads" (my SDD location) I had no issue, so I removed the Downloads from quick access and then drag and drop the Downloads folder from the Z: partition. After doing that, I am able to normally open the Downloads from quick access, I did not need to delete all files
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Paweł Görlich 15 Reputation points2024-04-09T20:01:29.7566667+00:00 The solution from Alfonso Nova solved my problem. I unpinned the Downloads folder from the quick access tab and navigated to the folder via explorer. It worked.
Afterwards, I pinned the folder back to the quick access and it worked again.
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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(243.2, 32%, 33%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3ET%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
TEAM_Leader 0 Reputation points2024-06-02T03:45:47.87+00:00 I only had this problem when trying to open the Downloads folder from Quick Access. It crashed when I tried to copy about 25 pdfs from one subfolder to another inside Downloads. If I navigated to the filepath (C:\Users"me"\Downloads), I could open it without issue. Running sfc /scannow and clearing the cache in File Explorer Options did not help.
I ran DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth. I moved recent downloads that I wanted to keep to another folder then deleted the contents of the Downloads folder. I was then able to pin it to Quick Access again, and everything worked fine. I'm not sure which actually resolved the issue, but I think it was deleting the contents.
Answer accepted by question author
AG
521
Reputation points
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averycuriousboy 0 Reputation points2023-05-26T16:59:52.2533333+00:00 basically i received this shenanigans after failed download of star citizen. but im a little bit conflicted since im not sure if its star citizen that caused this or many apps since ive selected many apps to use downloads folder for temporary things. deleting everything sure did fixed it for me. no need to reset pc. thank you very much but sadly google didnt made this into top search and made youtube video as top search
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Brandon Wu 0 Reputation points2024-01-10T14:37:41.1166667+00:00 This was helpful. It seems that downloading files perhaps while update is not there is the problem
8 additional answers
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Paweł Görlich 15 Reputation points
2024-04-09T19:58:59.49+00:00 This solved my problem. I unpinned the Downloads folder from the quick access tab and navigated to the folder via explorer. It worked.
Afterwards, I pinned the folder back to the quick access and it worked again.
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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(284.8, 50%, 37%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EBS%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Bing Suanino 0 Reputation points2024-11-11T03:35:59.1+00:00 Hi,
I came across this thread because I just encountered the same problem.
I always re-locate my "Downloads" folder to a different drive on my computer.My solution, I used the default location, then just brought back to my Data disk and it worked.
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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(89.60000000000001, 46%, 18%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3ESD%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Suvarghya Dutta 0 Reputation points2024-12-11T13:13:47.6366667+00:00 I faced this issue today (11th Dec'24). it seems there was a mp4 file which was downloaded which created this. I went to cmd and manually deleted the mp4 files from the download folder. Once deleted, I opened the Windows explorer and the download function worked perfectly.
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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(252.8, 79%, 34%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EY%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
yurhmz 10 Reputation points2026-08-20T15:13:02.25+00:00 In my case, the Downloads folder just seemed to have become too big, running a command to delete files that were older than X days solved my issue. Here's the command I used (deleting all files older than 600 days) :
forfiles /p "C:\your\folder\path" /s /d -600 /c "cmd /c del /f /q @path"