How to Speed Up a Windows Folder that Loads Very Slowly 2025

Speed Up a Windows Folder: There is a curious phenomenon of you have probably encountered, even with a fast Windows computer, there are loads Windows folder and files with agonizing slowness. Fortunately, the solution is simple and the results are immediate.

Why Your Folders Load So Slowly

He is a longtime Windows Explorer feature that dates all the way back to Windows Vista, where you can tell Windows Explorer kind of content in specific folders to optimize the way content is displayed.

For example: you can tell Windows Explorer to a particular folder is where you store your music files, and it will present the more useful files for navigation of music (such as detailed list column options like playtime file automatically activated). Even if you do not tell Windows Explorer to do this, some files automatically default to various parameters (the library folder “Music” is naturally default to view type of music files), and then uses a feature called Automatic Discovery of a file type on the rest. The automatic detection system is a best guess of what is in the folder based on the number of file types, last added files, and so on.When it works, it’s a great feature. When it does not work, it is a rather annoying bug: when a folder with many files is optimized for “images”, he churns immediately through all the files in the folder, regardless of whether or not the file is miniature view to check and update all thumbnails for all files in it.
Even on a beefy computer with a modern CPU, lots of RAM, and a fast solid state drive, this process can take 10-15 seconds to more than a minute, depending on the number of files in the folder. On older computers, it may even completely block Windows Explorer (not just the file in question).
An excellent example of this slowness desperate churn-bug-file in action is the Windows “Downloads” folder, thanks to what any automatic Discovery a file type is usually set in mode on most computers picture. If we were placing paris on what you bring to this article, we would be pleased bet that you came looking for a solution to your Downloads folder taking minutes to load and view files. Do not worry, we will not judge your cluttered downloads folder if you do not judge ours.
Fortunately the problem is as simple as saying Windows to stop treating the file as an image gallery.
How to change file optimization
As long as you know where to look, it is easy peasy to change your folder optimizations. First, locate the folder that you are having problems with. Generally most people have one folder that is particularly slow, but if you have a whole series of issues that have hurt you can adopt a top-down approach and change the settings of the parent folder to apply the changes to all sub records.
Once you have located the folder, simply right-click on either the file itself or in Windows Explorer, if you have the file open, an empty space in the Windows Explorer pane. Select from the context menu right click “Properties.”

In the Properties menu, click the “Customize” tab option.

In the Customize tab, you will find an entry “Optimize this folder for” with a drop down menu. Then Select “General items” option.If you want to apply the changes to all files in this folder, select “Also apply this template to all subfolders” in the dropdown menu.Click “Apply” and “OK” at the bottom of the Properties menu. Back in the troublesome folder, press F5 to reload the file and folder.