Show or Hide Selected Files from the Right-click menu

In File Explorer, you can hide or show selected files using the “Hide selected files” toggle button in the Ribbon interface. This command can be added to the context menu using the method described in article Add any Ribbon Command to the Right-click Menu in Windows 10.

Show or Hide selected files via the right-click menu

Download show_hide_selected_files.zip, unzip and run “show_hide_selected_files.reg”. This adds the “Show / Hide selected files” option to the Context menu for files and folders.

show or hide Selected Files context menu



Contents of the REG file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFileSystemObjects\shell\Windows.HideSelected]
"Description"="@shell32.dll,-37575"
"ExplorerCommandHandler"="{0947c622-f98a-48a5-9df7-60e5fe202e07}"
"Icon"="imageres.dll,-5314"
"MUIVerb"="Show / Hide selected files"

You can also make your own registry file by copying the above contents to Notepad and saving it with the .REG extension.

To remove the hidden attribute for a file or selected files to unhide them, enable “Show hidden files, folders and drives” option in the Folder Options dialog. Then select the files for which you want to remove the “H” attribute, right-click on the selection and click “Show / Hide selected files” context menu entry. It toggles the “Hidden” attribute for those files.


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

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