How to Disable or Enable Folder Type Discovery in Windows 11

Windows automatically detects a folder’s contents and assigns a “folder type” (General items, Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos). For example, the system can display thumbnails in a folder by default, especially when most of the folder’s content is images or videos. 

When your downloads or documents folder contains only a few files, it may be worthwhile to enable the folder type auto-discovery. However, if your folders contain hundreds or thousands of files, disabling the auto-discovery feature for folder type, which analyzes every file in an unspecified folder, can notably improve folder-opening times. 

Below are safe, practical ways to do both in Windows 11. 

Disable Folder Type Discovery

A straightforward way to turn off folder discovery is to create a new value in the Registry to circumvent the folder type auto-discovery process. 

1. Press Win + R to open the Run dialogue. Type regedit to open. 

2. Go to this path below:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareClassesLocal SettingsSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellBagsAllFoldersShell

3. Right-click on the blank space on the right side, then go to New > String Value and create a new string. Then name the newly created string as FolderType.

4. Double-click the FolderType string to open it and set the value data as NotSpecified.

5. Click OK to finish. 

Once done, File Explorer no longer wastes time scanning each file to decide how to display the folder’s contents. Editing the registry not only makes the File Explorer faster, but it also standardizes the view across all folders. It is also worth noting that this registry trick has been known since Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 days. And now it is regarded as a way to improve Windows 11 performance.

If you want to enable the File Discovery feature, delete the FolderType string in Registry Editor directly.

Conclusion

This guide shows you a simple and fast way to disable or re-enable this feature. If you do not have many files in your downloads or documents folder, disabling the folder type auto-discovery may not be worth your time. Also, if you want File Explorer to maintain a standard view across all folders, you may want to turn off the feature unless tweaked manually.