Windows Explorer Favorites Sidebar: Add Custom Links in Windows 7

Adding Custom Links to Your Favorites Sidebar in Windows 7

Windows 7’s Explorer sidebar has a Favorites section above Libraries, and you can pin your own shortcuts into it — handy for jumping straight to a frequently-used folder, network share, or even a single file, without digging through the folder tree every time. How to add a link:

1. Open %userprofile%\Links (type that directly into the Explorer address bar).
2. Right-click inside the folder and choose New > Shortcut.
3. Point it at the folder, network share, or file you want quick access to, and give it a name.

The new shortcut appears in the Favorites section of every Explorer window’s sidebar immediately — no restart or sign-out needed. You can reorder, rename, or delete entries at any time simply by managing the shortcuts inside that same Links folder.

Why This Only Works This Way on Windows 7

The Links folder trick is specific to Windows 7’s Explorer shell — it’s the actual folder backing the Favorites node, which is why dropping a shortcut in there is enough to make it appear. Windows 7 itself reached end of mainstream support back in January 2015 and end of all support (including the paid Extended Security Updates program) on January 10, 2023, so if you’re reading this on a live production machine rather than a lab VM or legacy embedded system, it’s worth planning a move off it — no more security patches have shipped for over two years.

The Equivalent on Windows 10 and Windows 11

Microsoft replaced the Favorites/Links model with Quick Access starting in Windows 8.1, and it carries through unchanged in both Windows 10 and Windows 11. The concept is the same — a pinned shortcuts area at the top of the Explorer sidebar — but the mechanism is simpler and doesn’t rely on a hidden folder full of shortcut files:

1. Open File Explorer and browse to the folder, network share, or drive you want quick access to.
2. Right-click it and choose Pin to Quick access (or drag it directly onto the Quick access node in the sidebar).
3. To unpin, right-click the entry under Quick access and choose Unpin from Quick access.

One difference worth knowing: Quick Access also auto-populates with recently and frequently used folders alongside your manually pinned ones, which can clutter the list. You can turn that off in File Explorer Options > General by unticking “Show recently used files” and “Show frequently used folders,” leaving only the items you’ve deliberately pinned — the closest modern equivalent to the old Windows 7 Favorites behaviour.

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