The US-based tech giant Microsoft has introduced a new feature in Windows 11 called “Gallery” that aims to simplify access to users’ photo collections in File Explorer. The company said that the set of content shown in the Gallery is the same as what users can find in the All Photos view in the Photos app.
“We are introducing Gallery, a new feature in File Explorer designed to make it easy to access your photo collection. The set of content shown in Gallery is the same as what you’ll see in the All Photos view in the Photos app,” Microsoft said in a blog post.
The feature has been included in the latest Windows Insider Build 23435, which allows users to access the Gallery view quickly through the File Explorer’s navigation panel.
Furthermore, the company stated that if users have OneDrive Camera Roll Backup set up on their phones, the photos they take will show up automatically at the top of the view.
Users can choose which folders are displayed in the Gallery view through the Collection dropdown. They can also add subfolders of existing sources to filter a subset of their content, such as desktop backgrounds and SD card/camera imports.
However, the feature is currently only available to a few testers and not yet available to all Insiders on the Dev Channel. Microsoft plans to monitor feedback before rolling it out to everyone.
Additionally, Microsoft has announced that it will be making significant changes to the way Windows manages which apps open specific files by default, and how users can pin programs to their Start menu on the taskbar or on the desktop.
The company will introduce a new deep link “uniform resource identifier” (URI), which will allow developers to send users to the correct section of the Settings menu when they want to change how Windows 11 responds to specific links and file types.