How to rearrange columns in File Explorer on Windows 10
File Explorer has been a staple app on Windows for years. It has gotten few upgrades with each new edition of Windows 10 but it’s a fairly comprehensive app for the most part. Few Windows users seek an alternative to it. When you select a file in File Explorer, it displays quite a bit of information about it. If you’ve set it to show files in the Details view, you will see columns telling you when the file was created, its size, the author, and other things. These columns may not always be in your preferred order but it’s pretty easy to rearrange columns in File Explorer. Here’s how.
Rearrange columns in File Explorer
File Explorer only shows columns if you’ve set files to view in Details view. To change the view type for a folder, open it and go to the View tab. In the Layout toolbox, select details.
Once you’re in Details view, File Explorer will be divided into several columns. If you want, you can right-click the title of any one of the columns and you will see additional columns that you can enable. Some columns may only be available for certain file types for example, the Album or Track No. columns can only be enabled for audio files.
If you’ve enabled all the columns that you need, you can start rearranging them. To rearrange a column simply drag & drop it where you need it to appear. For example, if you need the size column to appear before the Type column, simply click on its title and drag it so that it appears after the Name or Date column. You can drag and reposition any column you want, including the Name column.
The change will stick even after you close the folder and open it again however, this change is folder specific. A change made to a folder will not be inherited by any folders nested in it. It doesn’t matter if you added nested folders after rearranging the columns or before it. File Explorer looks at the type of file in a folder and chooses the best layout for it which means the Details layout may not always be selected and you will always get the default order of the columns in File Explorer.
This isn’t exactly a monumental change and it won’t impact system stability at all however, if you want to restore a column to its original position, simply hide and unhide it. To hide a column, right-click any column’s title and unselect the column name that you want to hide. Repeat this process and select the column to enable it again. It will return to its original position in File Explorer.
