I recently switched to Windows 11 after termination of support for Windows 10, and I was stunned by how hard it now is to move files around in File Explorer. The main source of the problem is that the Navigation Pane cannot be made to the show separate folders contained under the overall documents folder, as was possible under Windows 10.
The effects of this terrible omission can be seen as follows. Suppose that I want to move a file from one documents sub-folder to another documents sub-folder. Under Windows 10, I would click on the overall documents folder in the Navigation Pane to show all its sub-folders in the right-hand pane. Then I would click on a particular sub-folder to show its individual files. Next, I would click on the documents folder in the Navigation Pane, which would then show all the documents sub-folders, again in the Navigation Pane. Then I would drag and drop the file from the sub-folder in the right hand pane into the target sub-folder, now shown in the Navigation Pane, indicating whether the file should be move or copied.
Now, because the documents sub-folders in Windows 11 cannot be shown in the navigation pane, this simple task is no longer possible. Instead, once I open a particular documents sub-folder in the right hand pane, all I can do is move or copy the file of interest to the OVERALL documents folder in the navigation pane, not to the target subfolder. Then, in the right hand pane, I have to go to the bottom of folder list to see the moved file sitting there all by itself, and then (staying in the right-hand pane), drag and drop the file into the target sub-folder.
Other more cumbersome procedures than this one are outlined online. It's amazing to me that Microsoft could have impaired the usability of File Explorer in this fundamental way when designing Windows 11. I thought their software engineers were smart! But this egregious degradation of File Explorer makes one think otherwise. Let's hope it gets fixed.