Problem with selection being lost when going down folders

Help & Support
1

When you enter a folder, its contents are loaded with nothing selected. This has some janky behavior, where, for example:

  • You want to enter the first subfolder. Because there's no selection, you have to press right on the keyboard, which will make the 2nd subfolder be selected, and then you press left to go to the 1st subfolder, and then you can press enter to enter it. Cumbersome, 3 times as many inputs as seems necessary, but doable. However...
  • If there is only 1 subfolder and no other items, this subfolder will not be selectable unless you use your mouse. Pressing any directional key has no effect in giving the single folder the selection. (Weirdly, if you alt tab out, and then back in, then a soft selection is given to the subfolder, and you are able to use directionals to gain full selection of it.)

I'm not sure if this only started happening since I upgraded to W11 or not, but I come across it constantly and it's very annoying. The first folder should always at least be given a soft selection to avoid an issue like this, and preferably, it'd be nice to have an option to have it instantly go to a full selection, to cut down on unnecessary button presses.

2

You can push space to select the item with focus.

Or turn on the option in Preferences to select the first item automatically:

  • Preferences / File Displays / Options / Automatically select first file in folder (except in Power Mode)
  • Preferences / File Display Modes / Power Mode / Automatically select first file in folder

(No selection is being "lost" here. Nothing was selected to begin with.)

3

Also, the arrow keys (all four of them) will select the first/only item here, at least in every mode I tried. (Details, Thumbnails and List.)

4

Ah, the option is in file displays. I was looking under folder behavior, where the Up folder options are. My bad.

I know for a fact it happens to me in thumbnails mode, but it seems to be inconsistent, and at the moment I'm having trouble replicating it so I can record it and show it to you. But the options you showed me fix my issue, so it's fine. Thanks!

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