@VivyVCCS on X (Twitter) disclosed details about a newfound bug in Windows File Explorer that can significantly boost the app's folder browsing performance—alleviating one of the application's most infamous problems. The bug requires manual activation by the user, but it is arguably one of (if not) the easiest bugs to activate.

To initiate the bug (or hack), all you need to do is open File Explorer, press the F11 key once to open File Explorer in full-screen mode, and then press F11 again to exit full-screen mode.

That's it! Once the bug is in motion, you should notice instantaneous refreshes when swapping between different folders, even on different drives. The bug is software-related, so the performance improvements work on all drives, from the fastest and Best SSDs to the slowest hard drives. The only issue with this "bug" is that the navbar apparently breaks when activating the bug, but it is a small price to pay for the greatly enhanced performance.

If pressing F11 is too inconvenient, Schalk Burger created an automated hotkey script on Github that automatically activates the hack when you open File Explorer.

File Explorer used to be very snappy, especially on older operating systems, but for some reason, it has become increasingly 'clunky' in recent iterations of Windows like 10 and 11. This has been my experience and is harkened by the dozens of forum posts you can see online from users complaining about laggy File Explorer performance on Windows 10 and 11.

For now, at least, Microsoft has not mentioned whether they will fix the bug. But we wouldn't be surprised if they will once this new File Explorer hack gains more traction online. Hopefully, Microsoft will perform a performance update on File Explorer while fixing the bug.