Revamped Photo Gallery: Windows 11's Exciting File Explorer Upgrade

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The Windows 11 File Explorer has undergone several significant updates, including the addition of a new photo gallery view. This improvement is set to enhance the user experience and make it easier to browse and manage image files. While the File Explorer was largely untouched in previous versions of Windows, Microsoft's commitment to improving the overall functionality of the operating system is evident in this latest development.

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23435 is currently being rolled out to Windows Insider testers in the Dev Channel. This update includes a new gallery view in the File Explorer, which can be accessed through the Gallery option in the sidebar menu, located next to your cloud storage and favorited folders. The new view displays your recent photos in a grid layout, allowing for easy access.

The gallery view showcases both images from your PC's files and photos from your OneDrive cloud storage. It also gives you the option to add or remove specific folders from the panel. If you have camera backups enabled in the OneDrive app on your phone, you'll see recent images appear automatically in the gallery view. According to Microsoft, it functions similarly to the All Photos view in the system Photos app.

The file picker in various applications will now have the gallery view option. This will simplify the process of finding a recent photo across all applications without having to sift through multiple folders or utilizing the system search function.

Although the new gallery is still in the initial stages of testing, it may take some time before it is available on all Windows 11 devices. Additionally, Microsoft is currently testing an updated codebase for the File Explorer that uses WinUI 3 instead of WinUI 2.

Source: Windows Blog