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How to pin shortcuts to taskbar in Windows 11?

Anonymous
2023-08-02T11:21:12+00:00

In Windows 10, I was able to drag a file (such as Excel) and drop it on the pinned Excel app on the taskbar, and it would stay as a shortcut to that file (by right-clicking on top of the pinned app, would bring all the pinned shortcuts for that app). However, I’m not able to do this on Windows 11, and I can’t find a way around it. Was this removed altogether? Because I still have the shortcuts from my original Windows 10 installation.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Accessibility

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-05-03T17:05:37+00:00

    To pin an excel document to the task bar in Windows 11:

    1. Go to (left click) start > settings > personalization > start
    2. Turn on "Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists, and File Explorer"
    3. Open the excel document
    4. Pin the excel app icon to the task bar (if not already done)
    5. Right click excel app icon on task bar
    6. Pin the excel document icon as you did in Windows 10
    7. Optionally turn off "Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists, and File Explorer". The pinned excel document icon will remain.

    Apparently, "Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists, and File Explorer" is off by default when Windows 11 is first installed if it was off in Windows 10.

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-04-24T08:03:50+00:00

    Found this and it worked for me: https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-taskbar-pin-almost-anything/ 

    Titled "How to Pin a Windows Folder to Windows 11's Taskbar" is where I found the solution. Wasn't trying to pin a folder or excel file, but the same steps apply to a .bat file shortcut I wrote and other shortcuts that Windows 11 said it couldn't do.

    To summarize the article: create desktop shortcut -> right click and go to "Properties" -> In the "Shortcut" tab, where it says "Target:", type: "explorer" followed by a space in front of the current path. EX: (explorer "C:\Users\Name\Desktop\file) -> click apply (this will change the start of the Target name which is normal).

    This may only work with Windows icons and in that case you will need to change the icon to the ones in SHELL32.dll

    Back in the shortcut properties "shortcut" tab, click on "Change Icon". You then will need to locate SHELL32.dll in system32. The path should be C:\Windows\System32 then locate SHELL32.dll

    Once this is changed, the option to pin to taskbar should appear, or you can drag and drop it into the taskbar from the desktop.

    Hope this solves the problem for some.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-08-05T08:39:33+00:00

    Thank you for the reply. However, I want to know how to pin shortcuts to the taskbar not add shortcuts to the desktop, which is quite different and straightforward.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-02-22T09:08:51+00:00

    (2) How To Pin A Folder To The Taskbar In Windows 11 - YouTube

    worked for me, pinning a shortcut to the taskbar

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-11-22T05:58:20+00:00

    Unfortunately, no. I believe the solution is to go back to Windows 10, considering the amount of replies on this thread. Or pray they address this on an update down the line.

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