A Guide to Making Desktop Shortcuts for Various Items on Windows 11

|

|

The article provides a guide on creating desktop shortcuts in Windows 11. The shortcuts can point to files, folders, apps, or websites. Different methods include using the “New Item Shortcut Wizard,” the “Send to” command in the context menu, dragging items from the start menu, or dragging and dropping web addresses directly onto the desktop.…

This article explains how you can create desktop shortcuts for files, folders, and websites in Windows 11.

Shortcuts are links that point to the original location of files, folders, and other items in Windows. For example, a file in your home directory under C:\Users\geekrewind\Documents can have a shortcut on the desktop: C:\Users\geekrewind\Desktop.

When a user clicks on the shortcut link on the desktop, the original location of the folder content will be opened, not on the desktop but where the folder is created.

Windows lets you create two types of shortcuts. A standard shortcut is copying and pasting content to another location, like your desktop.

The other is pinning an app or item to the Taskbar or Start menu.

Create desktop shortcuts using a new item wizard

As described above, there are multiple ways to create shortcuts in Windows. However, the traditional way to create a shortcut on your desktop is to use the new item shortcut wizard.

Users can also create a shortcut for apps by pinning it to the Taskbar or Start Menu.

To create shortcuts on the desktop using the wizard, right-click on any blank area of the desktop and select New -> Shortcut. Alternatively, right-click on the desktop, select Show more options (Shift+F10), then select New -> Shortcut.

Next, type the location of the item you want to create a shortcut for. You can use the Browse button to find the location if you don’t know the location.

When you browse, you can select the target of the shortcut (files, folders). For this example, we’re creating a shortcut for the Documents folder.

Select the Documents folder and click OK.

Click the Next button to continue.

Next, type the name of the shortcut and click the Finish button to complete that wizard

It would be best to have a Document shortcut icon on the desktop pointing to the Documents folder in your home directory.

Create desktop shortcuts using the Send to command on the context menu

Yet another way to create shortcuts on your desktop for files, folders, and other items is to right-click on the item and use the Send to command on the context menu.

Again, use the context menu option to create a shortcut for your Documents folder on the desktop.

Open File Explorer and browse to the Documents folder or whatever folder you want to create a shortcut for.

Then right-click on the folder and select Show more options (Shift+F10) on the context menu. Then click Send to -> Desktop (create shortcut).

A new shortcut icon will be created on the desktop that points to the Documents folder.

Create desktop shortcuts from the Start menu

Windows also allows you to create shortcuts to apps and other items directly from the Start menu. To do that, click on the Start menu and select All apps.

You can select and drag and drop items on the menu directly to your desktop.

Create desktop shortcuts for websites

You can create desktop shortcuts for files, folders, and apps and do it for websites and other network resources.

Windows allows you to drag and drop website addresses or URLs directly to your desktop and create shortcuts.

To do that, open your web browser and browse the website you want to create a shortcut for. Then select the address in the address bar, then drag and drop on the desktop.

If you don’t want the shortcuts on the desktop, delete them. When you delete a shortcut, it doesn’t delete the original file or folder. You can also change the icons and names for all the shortcuts on the desktop.

That should do it!

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to create desktop shortcuts in Windows 11. Please use the comment form below if you find any errors above or have something to add.

Like this:



2 responses to “A Guide to Making Desktop Shortcuts for Various Items on Windows 11”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.