And I Dream of Jeannie. Tabs in File Explorer is something that users have been asking for decades now. And while Windows 11 is giving the app a refresh, the feature that everyone wants is nowhere to be seen.
For some reason, Microsoft is still not ready to bring a tabbed experience to what is clearly the most widely used application in the operating system.
So, while File Explorer will get better in the new OS, it will not function better.
Redmond is making the experience a little bit better by making it easier to work with multiple windows at the same time via additional snap options that are available by simply hovering over the maximize button in the window.
But it is clear that the company does not want to bake in a tabs feature — not yet, at least.
However, that does not stop the community from submitting proposals in the form of concepts. This latest one is a simple enough implementation that adds tabs to File Explorer while keeping the overall UI of the app pretty clean.
Take a look:
It’s a blurry dream, as the image quality could be a lot better. But the design seeps through.
And it is inspired by Microsoft Edge and appears to be based on the concept of Sets that the Redmond-based technology company itself was pursuing a few years back. That, too, went nowhere, as the firm encountered technical difficulties in implementing that.
It clearly could work here, as the design above shows.
As long as there’s a will, that is.
