Open Any Folder With a Keyboard Shortcut in Windows

Do you work with a lot of folders and directories and want to open specific folders with a specific keyboard shortcut of your choice? Do you want to assign simple hot keys to open that special folder, which would otherwise require a dozen mouse clicks? Here is a simple trick which displays all the content of a folder after you have assigned a unique hot key to its folder properties.

While there is always an option to create a shortcut for the folder and place it on Windows desktop, I am not a very big fan of desktop shortcuts because they clutter the UI of my Windows PC.

Here are the steps to assign keyboard shortcuts to particular folders on your computer, this trick works with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7

1 .Right click the folder which you want to open and create a desktop shortcut to it.

2. Now right click the shortcut (placed usually on your desktop) and select properties.

3. Under the shortcuts tab press the key you want to open the folder in the “Shortcut Key” box. Note that windows automatically appends Ctrl+Alt before your keyboard hot key. Select Apply and then Ok.

4. That’s it, your favorite folder will open whenever you hit the defined keyboard shortcut. 

I have some shortcuts assigned to my keyboard for some particular tasks.

For example: I have assigned the key M for my music folder, D for the documents folder and P for the my pictures folder. The same trick also works if you want to access some application programs or a game. Create a shortcut for the application or software you want to open, right click it and assign the keyboard shortcut for the program in the “Shortcut Key” text box, located in the properties window. Done !