The Quick Access feature in Windows 10/11 provides a convenient way to access folders you frequently use by pinning them. However, in some situations, the pinned shortcuts in Quick Access get stuck, and you cannot remove or unpin them.
Quick access sometimes loses track of a target folder if it’s deleted or moved to another folder or drive, with the pinned item still pointing to the old location. Here is a classic case where Quick access failed to update the Pinned item’s target (and showed a “Location is not available” error) after the original folder was moved to a different drive.
If an item in Quick access is stuck, here are some methods to unpin or remove the problematic item.
Note: Quick Access is renamed to “Home” Windows 11 22H2 onwards. However, the methods in this article still apply to Windows 11.
Solution
Use one of these options to remove the stuck item in Windows 10/11 Quick Access.
Option 1: Create a new folder in the old location, and then Unpin it
In File Explorer, try to remove the pinned item by right-clicking and selecting Unpin from Quick access or Remove from Quick access (for frequent places that are added automatically).
But if that doesn’t work, create a folder with the same name and in the exact location where the pinned item expects the folder to be. Then, open File Explorer and unpin or remove the item.
Option 2: Reset the Quick Access Recent Items
This option applies if a “recent” folder (not a pinned item) has got stuck.
Open Folder Options. In the General tab of the Folder Options dialog, click the Clear button.
This clears the Recent folders list in Quick Access without affecting the custom Pinned items.
Option 3: Multi-Select Items and Unpin them
- Click Quick Access.
- In the right pane or the folder view, select the pinned item that’s stuck.
- Press the Ctrl key, and select another item you want to unpin.
- Right-click on the selection, and choose Unpin from Quick access.
Option 4: Reset Quick access (both Pinned and Frequent)
There are situations where nothing of the above methods would remove the invalid or stuck pinned shortcut in Quick access. For example, in some cases, you may be unable to unpin a problematic item using the methods listed above.
Or, in some situations, you may get the error “A disk error occurred during a read operation” when pinning a new folder to Quick Access (or “Home” in Windows 11.)
To resolve the issue, reset Quick access using the following steps:
The Quick access pinned and frequent items data are kept in a file named f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms in the following folder:
%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
Type the above path in the File Explorer address bar, and delete this file:
f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms
Or copy the following command and paste it into the Run dialog (Win + R) to delete the file:
cmd.exe /c del "%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms"
This clears the custom pinned and frequent items listing in Quick access. Windows regenerates this file immediately the next time you open File Explorer, listing the default ones.
Note: You don’t need to clear all the *.automaticDestinations-ms files in that folder, as some websites suggest.