How to Use Navigation Pane in Windows 10

Navigation Pane, as clear from its name, lets you navigate through your most frequently visited places in your computer by providing shortcuts to those places. When you open the File Explorer, you can find the navigation pane on the left edge of the window.

Navigation pane has some main sections, such as Quick Access, One Drive, This PC, Library, and Network.

With the introduction of Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced the Navigation Pane. Before the introduction of the Navigation Pane, windows were equipped with the Places Bar, which provided access to the recently used folders, files, drives, networks, etc. In this article, we will discuss, how to use different features in the Navigation Pane.

To access the navigation pane, open windows explorer by double click This PC icon on the desktop.

As soon the explorer is open, you can see the Navigation Pane on the left edge of the window.

In case if it is not there, just click on the View tab

Click on the Navigation Pane, select the Navigation Pane option from the drop-down menu

The Navigation Pane is now visible on the left edge of the window. The top option in the Navigation Pane is the Quick Access option. This option lets you access the most recent and frequently opened folders and places.

You can control, what shows in the quick access option, by right-clicking the quick access option and select the Options.

The options window pops up, you can select multiple options from the Privacy settings. Furthermore, you can also clear the file explorer history.

Normally in the Navigation Pane, you will not see the Library folder. To show the Library folder right click on the space in the Navigation Pane and select the Library option and it will show.

The Library option gives you access to the Documents, Music, Picture, and Videos Folder