I don’t usually post “tips” but this issue has frustrated me to no end for many months and I finally found a simple but instant effective solution. It’s too good not to spread the word about.
In the last couple of months, I started noticing that clicking the “Downloads” folders in Windows Explorer took around 15 seconds to load. This become quite annoying as I frequently access downloaded files from browsers. I tried deleting clearing out the folder but that didn’t have a lasting effect.
After a bit of research, it turns out apparently Windows 7 (and Windows 8) tries to guess-timate what the contents of the folder are and assigns special “rules” to them to optimize the view settings and sorting.
For some reason, the “Downloads” folder likes to be categorized as a “Pictures” folder (I’m guessing because people store a lot of JPGs in it). The problem with this view is that it tries to generate thumbnails for all the files in this folder, even if they’re not pictures.
The fix is to ensure the folder settings for “Downloads” is optimized for “General items”. This should have an instant effect (the next time you add files to the folder since the thumbnails are otherwise cached anyway).
Unfortunately, this change doesn’t seem to always stick as Windows may change the option as you download more files, so you may have to check this setting once in a while.
Mine was already set to General Items. But I’ve noticed this with a lot of my other folders…Windows wanting to display everything as a picture when I have mostly documents. Nice to know it’s easy enough to fix.
It worked, thanks! But why would MS do this if it causes the delays it does in the 1st place?
Lack of attention to detail. Perhaps someone was asleep at the wheel before they shipped…
Because they are stupid… Putting down extra work in adding a feature that makes something worse is a high level of stupidity.
Yah! This frustrated me for more than a year, as my Downloads folder gradually slowed down. I assumed it must be something wrong with my PC – even a virus. I didn’t even google “Downloads folder slow to open” because I couldn’t imagine that this would be a common problem – Microsoft are surely not that stupid! It turns out they are!
Oh my, thank you so much for this. It’s been driving me crazy.
I’ve found that there’s a single three-step procedure that has saved me lots of time and frustration when it comes to optimizing Windows. It works for anything, really. The page doesn’t list Windows 8 but it works like a charm there too: http://www.ge0ph.com/content/WindowsTweaks.aspx
If that were the case, we wouldn’t all be on this page!
Yeah, thanks for that time-waster, Fred.
Hmmm… I like you fred… You’re very funny
http 404 error
And what about Windows XP?
yah! workd for me as well. thanks
Thank You
Thanks, this worked!
Thanks. This has been annoying me for a while and I just got fed up enough to do a google search. π
Thanks a lot, it worked
mine was already selected to general, so i just ticked box underneath for changes to affect sub folders now i got instant access not 10 mins of green bar accross the top!
Thanks
Perfect, like another user here, mine was already set to ‘General’, but ticking the ‘apply to subfolders’ did the trick! Thanks!!!!
ty!
Worked out fine! Thank you!
OMFG thank you! . What the fuck is wrong with mixrosoft that that would fit this!!!! IT would take 10 min + to load up the fucking folder and my PC is FAR from slow . thanks for making sense of it and stopping it.
Thank you so much!
Thanks VERY much. I’ve been cursing this problem for months!
THANK YOU!! This was driving me NUTS!!
not at all working .. mine was not slow… it didnt open .. shows loading for some time then explorer becomes nonresponding….
It begins to sound like you might have a bigger problem than just thumbnail loading issues then. This actually did the trick for me as well. I was about to put my fist through my screen and this did the trick for me. You may in fact just have a corrupted video or image file in the folder and you may have to delete it from the command line if that’s the case. I would also run a malware scan on it just to be sure something else isn’t going on.
Whoops, my Download properties dialog box doesn’t have a Customise tab. The tabs, left to right, are General, Shortcut, Security, and Details. I’m running Windows 8. Any suggestions?
Well, I’ll be, Windows 8.1 seems to have fixed the problem!
I had the same problem… You have to navigate to the downloads folder through the normal C:\Users\[username] hierarchy, not the dynamic link to ‘downloads’ that shows up when you open an explorer window.
so I went to…
C:\Users\Brent
then right clicked on the ‘downloads’ folder and the ‘Customize’ tab was there.
And thanks very much for the post! This has been annoying me for years!
ahah! going directly to c:\users\… showed that the box was unchecked, but the quick access downloads folder had it checked… This worked, thanks Brent.
It works thanks!
It works Thank you so much!
Thanks, this has bothered me a lot!
THANK YOUUUUUUUU SO MUCH!!!….. GOD BLESS YOU….. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK SIR!!
Many thanks…
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my inbox opened but my inbox contents is not displayed. some times its displayed half content with one line message. i cant read full content in my inbox.what reason i dont know sir. pleasse help me sir to solve the problem. i think my inbox contents are slowly occured.
LOVE IT! THANKS S MUCH THIS HAD BEEN KILLING ME!
You legend. thanks
Just disabled Windows Defender, and then installed Avast Free, now my Downloads folder opens instantly.
Help – I’m in Vietnam with a Windows 8 with the same problem! Can anyone please tell me the way to reset the downloads in simple W8 language?
I’ve been dealing with a slow downloads folder for years! I didn’t know this fix was so simple! Thanks!
Thanks a lot! It’s been a small frustration, but it’s been months since it was doing this. Thanks for devoting your time to share about this fact, which undoubtedly helped many many people. Also, this log-in-less commenting is awesome.
thanks man … you saved my live
Thanks brutha , i kept restarting my comp ,doing virus scans, clearing temp and cache memory , even check my index options..
Thank you!
BIG thank you! I used to open Downloads folder, go for a cup of coffee, drink it, go to university, finish a master, doctorate, and return to see if Windows 7 was done.
Now it is instant!
Too Funny, but I share the pain.
You absolute legend! Thank you so much! This solved my problem perfectly. Like many other comments here, it’s been driving me nuts for months.
Damn it, thank you a lot for your tips sharing ! I’m begining to be crazy with my download folder which loading really slowly. I think it was indexing problems ^^
AWESOME SOO FRUSTRATING
OH MY GOD THANK YOU.
I could just hug you!
Perfect! Thanks for the great tip.
Said the guy who obviously has never programmed in his life.
Super!!!!!!!
Thank you very much Long Zheng!
I don’t have the “Customize” tab in my Downloads folder’s Properties, running Windows 8.1. Any idea how to fix slow folder load time under Windows 8.1?
Thank you. Your hint is still thrilling people!
Thanks you soooo much!!
Wow… Worked straight away and so much faster!
I love you, man!! >:( Micro$oft ):<
God bless you!
Nice home picture. This offer is really nice. Thank you for sharing with us.
windows 8 download
yeboooo!!!!! it worked, thanks alot
AWESOME.
It will probably come back once in a while as Windows keeps trying to reorganize your folder(s). Had the same problem and found this on another site discussing this problem:
12/27/13 10:39am
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This will disable the feature once and for all:
Regedit.exe
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell
New -> String Value “FolderType ” -> Data “NotSpecified “
Jules, you’re my hero! The other fixes weren’t working for me. I like the layout for the folder now, too.
thanks Long Zheng you’re a STAR! My ‘Download’ folder’s load time was pissing me off too… as I say you’re a star (and thanks for doing the homework for all of us!)
Awesome thanks for this! It got to the point where I couldn’t even open the Downloads folder and it crashed explorer.exe!!!
THX π
Thanks!!! Easy fix!
Thanks!! It was annoying me to hell!
Thank you! You spend a lot of time, research, and money buying the right set up for your pc, and then you’re excited to listen to the song or tv show you bought – only to be stopped by opening that god damn, slow ass download folder. Thank you good sir! π
Not only was mine slow but it wouldn’t even show the contents of whats inside. I must have searched 15 things on Google and all of them failed but finally this worked!!!
Thank you so much!
I had a folder containing videos that was supposed to be optimized for Videos. Indexing was taking forever so I changed it to General. This seemed to clear it up.
Genius!!!
Superb! Worked like a “CHARM”
Thank you very much. Was wondering why this was being such a pain.
Excellent, thank you! 2 second google search and I have the answer I needed haha!
Mr. Zheng,
Nice share brother!! π
Thanks so much man… I sufferd a long time with this. It’s solved! Finally!
you are my hero. thanks! π
Give this man a medal!
thanks so much for this!
Thanks for the fix! you saved me!
Thank you! This has been bothering me for months, too! So smart of you to figure this out and post for us! π Can’t quite say the same for MS…
That was a great solution…thankyou!
THANK YOU so much.. This was one of the worst annoyances on my computer and now I finally got the idea to just google the issue.. I woudn’t have figured that this was so easily fixable.
windows 8, my porn video folder get a LONG WAIT for progress bar, longer it wait, when the folder contain whole gay web site porn (lots of video), apply this technique does help but … when file explorer, choose VIEW TAB, then extra large icon, then the progress bar appear again and take very long — should delete lot of porn
LOVE LOVE LOVE! THANK YOU!
Thanks! My Pictures folder is redirected to a share on my file server, however whenever I opened it Windows would load the same set of ~50% of them and about four seconds later the others, which was driving me crazy.
After changing it to “General Items”, my Pictures folder loads all files and thumbnails instantly.
Thank you SO MUCH!
Thank you so much! This was very useful!
Thank you thank you thank you!
Another Microsoft idiocy, fixed by their more intelligent users.
Amazing, i thought my laptop was dying!
THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!! SO GLAD TO FIND A SOLUTION!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!
wow, life saver!
Thank you so much – legend
Thanks so much! Worked like a charm!
Thank you so much π
Awesome….I was getting tired of it after months of dealing with it. Thanks for the post.
Thank yoouuuu! You are the best.
Thank you! This was driving me nuts.
BIG BIG THANK YOU
If I could only try this…but whenever I right click on any folder I get the spinning BCOD=Blue Circle Of Death. I can’t organize or move my documents around the way I would like. This is terrible. And I can’t seem to get into Downloads at all. Once again, I’ll have to go into cmd and copy my files from there, because the Windows UI is just about useless.
thanks a lot…
hiiiiiiiii https://www.impactpcsupport.com/
works for Windows 10 as well! Thanks a lot! π
Thanks man… works like a charm
Thank you so much!! This was bugging me a lot.
omg now my utorrent folder is instantaneous YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS
i’ve known about this options since a long time ago, but never thought it could cause this trouble…
today i decided to google search it just in case, and BAM!
LOVE YAAA.
This is genius
Thankssssssss..
Thank you very much!! great tip !
Finally… Thanks
Thank you Long! David from Italy
Here it id the END OF 2015 and I’m on WINDOWS FREAKING 10 and they still haven’t fixed this issue. How can a $300B+ company get away with this and stay in business? It’s past sad, it’s insulting.
Thank you so much. i was thinking that my files got corrupted that’s why it is taking that much of time and i had planed to format my drive too. but this solution really works man. (y)
Thank you kind sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
You’re the best
THANK YOU
I had the same problem, but changing the content type didn’t help.
Until I unchecked the shortcut setting “General-Advanced-Allow this file have contents indexed”.
Now it’s lighning fast!
thanks you bro
thanks buddy..worked like a charm!
Thanks! It worked perfectly, it was even built-in option in Windows 10…
OH GOD IT WORKED thanks love you xoxo.
Thank you very much! My incoming folder (from eMule) was really slow to load, and with your tip now it loads instantly!
Super. Thanks for such a great tip. It worked as you said.
Thanks!
Great to have this solved this after same experiences for best part of a year with several pcs!
Also Picture folder become “unusable” with the feature for it
It is simply not sensible to find a picture among thousands looking through every tiny thumbnail !
Also, tick the box below the key one: apply to all sub folders
Works W10
The time required to open the downloads folder was one of several annoyances after ‘upgrading’ from Win7 to Win10. It finally bugged me enough to Google it.
Great job! Works beautifully.
ditto here – couldn’t figure it out and frustratingly slow –
Woah! Thank you! This was bugging me as I have about 50 PDFs in my Downloads folder, which I access regularly.
Great tip. Worked for me. I am grateful
Thanks! works on win10
Great Many thx
Thank you so much!!!! Worked with windows 10!
As stated, works for Windows 10 – thank the Maker!
Thanks. That’s AWESOME!! Honestly, the I-feel-like-dancing type of AWESOME!! That was driving me almost literally crazy.
I can’t believe this. Microsoft can always go 1 step further to surprise me in a negative way.
Thanks man for this solution. I also found after reading this and looking that whole drives were set to be used as picture storage so if you have a drive that takes forever to load when you click on it that is the problem.
Thank you so much… Excellent find! =^)
Thanks for the tip. After upgrading my Windows 7 machine to Windows 10 this started happening to me. So the problem is in Windows 10 as well.
Afferim sanaaaaaa, Γ§ok gΓΌzel oldu.
Its Fine Really Great
3 years, 5 months, and 8 days, this thread is still helping people out. Thank you so much. Was driving me crazy. BTW using windows 10
seriously its that easy? i have asked 3 IT staff to fix this and they couldn’t. thanks!
Oh man, thanks alot!
it works!
it doesnt work for me, pls help
Why don’t I have the customize tab in my download properties? I have general, shortcut, security, details and previous versions. I’d love to try this as I’m going nuts waiting for the green bar to finish loading!
Any ideas??
Worked for me (windows 10). Thanks.
Awesome, problem fixed.
I can’t find the setting on Windows 7, and I’m the “computer guy” in this family… also seems no one asked it here? π
Okay, so I find out… neither clicking ‘Folder options’ or right-clicking –> ‘Options’ takes you to the right thing… right-clicking in empty space in the folder itself required. Really horrible UI. Great work, MS!
Worked for Win 10. I must be a masochist for the years I’ve been enduring the slow sort problem in the download directory. While waiting for it sort I did a search and surprisingly found this post. Immediately solved the problem.
I love you
this has driven me nuts for years, thanks so much for sharing!
thanks alot.
you saved millions of seconds of mine. Thanks man.
Thank you, 4 years later Microsoft still has not sorted this out, for shame!
nicely done
Is there another way to achieve this possibly? I’m running Windows 10 64bit on my Surface Pro 3 and initially this method of changing the folder properties to General Items worked, but only for a few days. Every time I access my downloads folder it needs to load and takes up to a minute sometimes (and it’s not like I have gigs of stuff in there). It’s really dumb that Windows needs to load locally saved items, and can be quite irritating at times.
You sir… Are my hero… Nothing as annoying to an IT Techie than his own PC having a delay -_-
Yes, it works!, very useful post!
On Win7 or Win8.1, to display “customize” tab, you have to do folder properties (C:\Users\user\downloads), not on the shortcut.
Extracted from: http://www.sysadmit.com/2016/07/windows-carpeta-descargas-lenta.html
I have these tabs – General – Shortcut – Security – Details – Previous versions (only) There is no other tab.
Wtf, why were there versions on Win 7 within versions. FFS I hate Microsnuff SO FUCKING MUCH.
How are they even still in business, considering they ruin entire companies with their piffle?
Thanks! Been bugging me a lot.
It’s been 4 years, yet this solution still works like charm for windows 10.
Thank you very much!. I was thinking my SSD is broken, turns out it is a very simple (yet so frustating) problem with the folder config.
Thank u so much it works really good, this issue keeps frustrating me for the past 1 year but now it really works good.
Thank you so much!!! Just worked on Windows 10!!! Please update the page that it works with Windows 10.
I’ve struggled with this for years over several operating systems. I wish I’d googled it before! Why on earth didn’t they fix it in Windows 10? Anyway well done & thanks for the amazing tip!
Note: my folder was already set to General, but it appears that Windows is lying. If yours is set to General, change it to another value, then set it back. Doing this resolved my speed issue.
my laptop was taking like forever to load “downloads” forder
This trick worked
Thank you
Just found this – thanks. G’day from Boston.
Thanks for that. Worked like a charm.
I don’t know who you are, or what you write about. But I found this post in a Google result, and I can only say that I LOVE YOU!! Thank you very much!
Ahhhh! Thank you so much! I love you.
Didn’t work for me. After messing for this for twenty minutes I finally found a solution that I think worked. Why? Because Windows and Microsoft sucks I guess. Seriously after A DECADE we are still dealing with slow indexing and crap like this. So annoying.
Open a command prompt and remove the READ ONLY attribute on the Downloads folder. For some reason this fixed this stupid bug.
1.) Windows+R, type cmd and to drop to a command prompt.
2.) You should be in your user home directory so type:
attrib -r Downloads (type the enter key, not ‘<', 'e', 'n', etc.)
That's it!
Stupidity fixed!
Awesome worked!
What a great tip !! Thank you !!
Unbelievable… I used to hate this stupid downloads folder issue so much! Thank you, this is so awesome!
“Ahhhhhh” π
Had this in Windows 7 and now in Windows 10…finally googled it and this is the answer…THANK YOU!!!
we are taking some time tech support help.
you saved my day!! π thx a lot
Fantastic!
Like all the others above, this was driving me crazy!!!..infinity.
THANKS A MILLION FOR THIS!
To Microsoft’s ‘helpful’ engineers – grrrrrrrr!!!!
I’ll also works on Win 10 – thank you! It really made a *big* different!
Worked in win10, was so pissed off having ssd and waiting like old days! Cheers!
Thanks a lot, this was bothering me so much (worked with Win10)
Thank you so much, you make my day!
I think I figured out how to make this fix permanent.
Create a new folder on your desktop.
Drag all of the files in your “Download” folder to the new folder on your desktop.
Then delete the “Downloads” folder.
Then rename the folder on your desktop “Downloads”.
Then drag and drop the new “Downloads” folder to where the old “downloads” folder was.
Thats it. Your Done. The new “downloads” folder shouldn’t have any presets as to whats in the folder, or whats being downloaded into the folder.
Does NOT work for me. It’s already optimized for “general”.
How about when Downloads isn’t “15 seconds” slow, but takes 15 MINUTES or more to load? I recently reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows (7 professional 64bit). Worked great for a couple weeks. Now suddenly Downloads loads so slowly it’s useless.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Good work !
yahoo. thanks.
OMG THANKS. WINDOWS 10 works
Thanx, It worked.
You, you, you’re good you!
This was driving me crazy in Windows 10. At least 15s to open. Now it opens immediately. Thanks!
Genius!!! Thank you so much
People, clean out your downloads folder and file things where they should go. I had same problem as everyone here. Turns out I had a movie file with a problem, and it was hanging up the folder sorting. I filed all my media into their proper folders and voila, my downloads folder works fine. Get it? The downloads folder is for TEMPORARY storage! File your stuff and this problem goes away!
OMG you saved 83715194716 seconds of my life. All these years I was trying to fix it but never thought that this can fix it. I LOVE YOU! Thank you
I thought my slow loading Download tab is due to Malware (as my laptop has recently infected by cryptolocker ransomware, lost all my movies and my documents). But this trick really saved me, thanks to the thread creator. I’m running Windows 10.
thanks, it works
Awesome!
Thank you for your effort to share your “tip” π
It was really useful!!
thank you, simple but effective!
Dude you rock!!!
you’re the MAN bro. Thank you so much. PS, it works for Windows 10 as well.
Thank you. This also works in Windows 10
Thank you, i thought i had bad sector in my hdd. Glad that it was just software issue.
Worked like a magic, thank you so much!
Thanks a ton for this tip! I’ve never had this happen in WIN10 until just recently and I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me. Very thankful you shared this.
Greetings from 2017!
Happened for me on Windows 10 as well.
Oh this!
Microsoft even brought this “feature” into Windows 10. What a company!
Thanks! 2017 and this still works… I’m glad I googled it, first time it happens to me.
Nice one, thanks heaps worked straight away π