Fix Cannot Unpin FTP Links from Quick access in Windows 10?

When you access an FTP site using File Explorer and Pin it to the Quick access section, the FTP site shortcut remains stuck and can’t be removed or unpinned. When right-clicking on the Pinned FTP link in the navigation pane the context menu doesn’t contain any options, except for an option named Expand, and that too dimmed out.

Whereas the Unpin from Quick access context menu option appears for all other Quick access shortcuts.

 

This post tells you how to unpin or delete the stuck FTP link from Quick access area.

Multi-Select Items and Unpin them

Click the Quick access button (the blue star) at the top. In the right pane or the folder view, select the FTP link, press CTRL and select another item that you want to Unpin. Multi-selecting items (FTP & a normal pinned folder) and right-clicking would show the context menu options correctly. Click Unpin from Quick access. For instance, you can Pin a test folder to Quick access, and then remove the FTP and test folder both together.

Whereas if you right-click on the FTP link alone, no context menu would appear at all. Thanks to Daniel Potthast for this wonderful tip.

Clear all the Quick access Shortcuts

In case the above method doesn’t work, you may have to clear the Quick access listing, by clearing the file f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms from AutomaticDestinations folder. For more information, check out my previous article Fix Quick access Pinned Shortcuts Stuck or Not Working Correctly.

How to Prevent this problem?

If you want to pin an FTP link to Quick access, make sure you don’t Pin the site’s root directory. You may rather Pin a top level folder in the FTP site (such as ftp://somesite/folder), so that this problem doesn’t arise. The item can be unpinned later if you don’t use it. It really works.

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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

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12 thoughts on “Fix Cannot Unpin FTP Links from Quick access in Windows 10?”

  2. Try the File menu in Windows explorer, and on the RH side you will see Quick Access changed its name to Frequent Places with little pin icons next to each shortcut, left click a pin to unpin said shortcut

    Reply

  5. my Windows 10 does not allow selecting multiple Quick Access Links. Don’t know if this is caused by a security setting or a newer version. My Windows is up to date.

    Reply

    • You can’t select multiple items directly from the sidebar. Open the Quick Access folder in a File Explorer window and you’ll be able to select multiple items.

  8. I am having this issue with Dropbox links. I don’t know if they are FTP links? If so, I don’t understand your solution “ You may rather Pin a top level folder in the FTP site (such as ftp://somesite/folder), so that this problem doesn’t arise. The item can be unpinned later if you don’t use it. It really works.”
    What would that mean in terms on Dropbox?

    Reply

  9. Thank you so much but like @Microsoft i can’t believe this is a goddamn thing you couldn’t think of. If you select the one there’s no context menu but if you just select one more you can very easily do it? What?

    Reply

  10. I got this from some portals and works C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

    great (Deletes all the Quick Access links incl FTP)

    Reply

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