Quick Access is a new feature introduced with Windows 10. With default settings, Quick Access displays recently opened files and frequently access folders. However, the Quick Access in the navigation pane of File Explorer displays only frequently accessed folders (not files).

Windows 10 allows users to pin their favorite folders to Quick Access so that users can access their favorite folders quickly without having to navigate to the original location. Since Quick Access in the navigation pane appears even if you configure the File Explorer to open to This PC instead of the default Quick Access, you can make most of the feature by pining your favorite folders to it.

At times, you might want to rename folders pinned to Quick Access to improve privacy. Unfortunately, Windows 10 doesn’t allow you to rename folders pinned to Quick Access, unlike other folders. On top of that, the Quick Access will display the original name of the folder even if you create a shortcut to the folder and pin it to Quick Access after renaming the folder shortcut.

That said, there is a workaround to rename folders pinned to Quick Access. If you want to rename folders pinned to Quick Access, you need to take the help of the Mklink command present in Windows 10.

Guide to rename folders pinned to Quick Access in Windows 10

Complete the given below directions to rename folders under Quick Access in Windows 10.

NOTE 1: In this guide, we are renaming Downloads folder to My Downloads.

NOTE 2: This guide might not work for networked folders.

Step 1: Open File Explorer.

Step 2: Navigate to the folder under Quick Access that you want to rename. Hold down the Shift key, right-click on the folder that you want to rename, and then click Copy as path option to copy the folder’s path to the clipboard.

Step 3: Launch the Command Prompt as an administrator. To do that, type CMD in the Start/taskbar search field, right-click on the Command Prompt entry in the search results, and then click Run as administrator option.

Step 4: In the Command Prompt, type the following command:

mklink /J

In the above command, replace with the path to the new folder shortcut (new link) that is being created. Replace with the path to the original folder that you want to rename. Note that you can choose any location for the .

For instance, if you want to rename Downloads folder as My Downloads, then the command would be like this:

mklink /J “D:\My Downloads” “D:\Users\Test\Downloads”

In the above command, the Test is your user account name.

Finally, press the Enter key to execute the command. If done successfully, you will see Junction created message, as shown in the picture. For instance, when you run the command mentioned above, it will create a new folder shortcut named My Downloads in the root of the “D” drive.

Step 5: Now, navigate to the newly created folder shortcut, right-click on it, and click Pin to Quick Access option to pin the folder to Quick Access.

You may now click on the newly added folder shortcut in Quick Access to see the contents of the original folder. In other words, you just renamed the folder in Quick Access.

Step 6: If you want, you may now unpin the original folder from Quick Access.