Microsoft has been busy adding new features to Windows 11 through various Insider builds. Its most recent one has a hidden feature that adds tabs to File Explorer, making browsing your files much more pleasant.
Rafael Rivera, a developer of the EarTrumpet app, found tab support tucked into Microsoft’s new Windows 11 test build. It isn’t readily available in the build, so Microsoft probably didn’t plan to announce it yet.
When the feature is enabled, you can have multiple folders open in a single window instead of having each folder open in its own. It’s a nice feature that makes navigating your files and folders a smoother process.
— Rafael Rivera (@WithinRafael) March 9, 2022
If you want to try out the tabs for yourself, you’ll need to have the latest Windows Insider build 22572 from the Dev channel. You’ll then need to download ViveTool GUI.
Once installed, open Command Prompt with Administrator privileges. Next, type “cd “C:\Users\Username\Downloads\ViVeTool-v0.2.1” where Username is your Windows username. Finally, enter “vivetool addconfig 34370472 2” and restart your PC. Once it launches, you should have tabs in File Explorer.
Microsoft recently told The Verge it would “only communicate about features that we are purposefully enabling for Insiders to try out and give feedback on,” which would explain why the company didn’t mention File Explorer tabs. Hopefully, we’ll see the feature officially included in the next Windows 11 Insider build, as it’ll be a great feature to have in the release version of Microsoft’s OS.
