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Is there a smooth way to achieve that with a hotkey or change a setting?

My workflow problem is I am running fullscreen apps and using several instances of Explorer simultaneously to move files around the folders and into the fullscreen app. When I am finished with that I want to use the fullscreen app again so I click on the fullscreen app and all windows in front are obscured as expected. Then I need to go back to showing all those Explorer windows at once again. I haven't found a good way to do this.

Other people have answered "shift + click the Icon in the taskbar then restore all windows" but it is not the function I'm looking for. Alt+tab just lets me open one instance at the time. The best answer I have so far is spam ctrl+click on the Explorer icon to successively reveal them.

In mac OSX you can click on the icon in the taskbar and it will show all instances of finder/explorer. I am looking for that or similar functionality in Windows. The goal is to reveal all Explorer windows fast.

Thanks!

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6
  • You can put your mouse over the Explorer icon in the Task Manager and pick out the specific window you want. I do this all the time with multiple App sheets (Excel primarily).
    – anon
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 13:41
  • Thanks John, however this doesn't achieve the desired outcome. I need all explorer windows to appear all at once. Not just one specific window. Appreciate your answer!
    – Christoffer M
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 14:40
  • I do not think there is any way to bring some of all the icons to the front. None I have seen, but I will check around.
    – anon
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 14:42
  • Try making your own group and then dragging the Windows you need into the group. Now they would be together in the same spot. This may be inconvenient for a variable number of Explorer Windows: dummies.com/computers/operating-systems/windows-10/… Then you may be able to pin this to the taskbar
    – anon
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 14:56
  • Thanks for the effort, John! It doesn't solve my problem, unfortunately. I need a smooth way to bring all currently open File Explorer windows to the front simultaneously without any workarounds. I'm sure this function must exist natively because it feels so basic. At least then if the function exists there must be a way to map the function to a key..
    – Christoffer M
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 15:56

2 Answers 2

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0

Maybe add a 2nd desktop with all your file explorer windows then switch from desktop 1 and 2 with Ctrl+Windows and left/right arrows ?

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  • This not a bad suggestion, I don't understand why someone downvoted it. It's much less of a hassle than installing AutoHotkey...
    – Lurco
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 9:28
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Not exactly what you asked for, but in AutoHotkey you can do it with a shortcut.

This script does it when you do ctrl+e:

^e::
GroupAdd, Explorer, ahk_class ExploreWClass
GroupAdd, Explorer, ahk_class CabinetWClass
WinGet, vWinList, List, ahk_group Explorer
Loop, % vWinList
    WinActivate, % "ahk_id " vWinList%A_Index%
return

You need to install AutoHotkey, save this script to a file with the ahk extension and double-click it, that will configure the shortcut.

Original: https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=31843

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