Open Any Folder With a Keyboard Shortcut in Windows
I am a great fan of keyboard shortcuts. Whatever software applications, computer games or programs I am using, the first thing I try to learn is the program’s keyboard shortcuts and how I can use them to save time and be more productive.
Let’s say you have quite a few important folders and directories in your computer and you want to open specific folders with a unique keyboard shortcut. You don’t want to browse through Windows explorer, open up the hard drive partition and navigate from one folder to it’s sub folders. You want to directly open a specific folder using a custom keyboard shortcut.
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 !
You can also use Launchy – a program launcher for Windows that uses key combinations or install a Firefox add-on for browsing the web using keyboard shortcuts only
