Solved Help with using File Explorer 'my' way when seeking photos

Greetings,

I'm running
Edition Windows 11 Pro
Version 23H2
Installed on ‎1/‎24/‎2024
OS build 22631.3593
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22700.1003.0

This is a small issue that drives me crazy. In this circumstance I'm pretty sure it's my ignorance of properly using File Explorer somehow.

THE PROBLEM -- If I'm Firefox, and want to add a photo to a webpage (like right now, to this page), it sometimes invokes the File Explorer and asks me to find the photo, which (typically) is waiting on the desktop. The problem is my VIEW in FE doesn't make finding images easy. It's not set to make it super easy.

THE DESIRE -- So when FE opens like that, I'd like to see the most recent items first.

EXAMPLE -- Often I take Snapshots and wish to upload them to FB or texts. When I go to upload it, I want the view set to make it super easy to find. As in, most recent items shown first. I just took a snapshot of this post and when I go to upload it to this page, this is what I see --



I can tell you that snapshot I wanted to upload isn't visible in that image. It's neither at the top or bottom. Ideally the snapshot would be waiting for me as the first item after that row of folders.

QUESTION -- I know this sounds moronic, but how do I set that window to always show the most recent stuff first?

When you open File Explorer, if you click on “Quick Access” top left pane, can you not see the 20 most “Recent Files” at the bottom or right pane?

You removed “Quick Access” sorry, never mind.

You could try: Winareo Tweaker
WinaeroTweaker/Custom Navigation Pane Items.

I tried downloading this Shortcut (It's forC:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent)
And it shows fine in Windows File Explorer on the left. But when I opened attachments here, it doesn't show on the left anymore.
I don't know why?

When I click on the Change view button (below the Search box) and I change it to Details view I can click on the Date modified column header to change the sort order to Date descending (newest first). Next, when I change the view back to Large icons, it correctly remembers the sort order for me. Finally, when I close/reopen the Upload File dialog window of Firefox, it also correctly remembers both the sort order setting and the Large icons view setting for me.

I don't use regular Firefox, though. I run Firefox Portable with AllowMultipleInstances=true in PortableFirefox.ini, as the Default browser, and under the supervision of Sandboxie-Plus. Doing this allows me to (among various other things) run multiple instances of Firefox Portable concurrently and in such a particular way that each individual instance of Firefox Portable remembers its own settings separately. Fortunately, that also includes those specific settings that belong to things like the File Upload dialog window. These aren't actually stored within Firefox Portable itself, though, BUT... that in fact is one of the main reasons why I use Sandboxie-Plus, as registry modifications that are made by sandboxed processes are kept in the sandbox so these modifications only apply to sandboxed processes in the same sandbox. So, the "trick" here is to create and use multiple sandboxes. So I can Alt-Tab between one instance of Firefox Portable that has its Upload File sorted by Date descending and another instance that has it sorted by Date ascending.

hdmi said:

When I click on the Change view button (below the Search box) and I change it to Details view I can click on the Date modified column header to change the sort order to Date descending (newest first). Next, when I change the view back to Large icons, it correctly remembers the sort order for me. Finally, when I close/reopen the Upload File dialog window of Firefox, it also correctly remembers both the sort order setting and the Large icons view setting for me.

Click to expand...

That's it! I thought it was a setting somewhere but instead it's more like "set it up the way you want it once". Works perfectly. Thank you.