Stop Windows 11 Folder View From Resetting

Why Explorer keeps resetting your folder view

Two mechanisms are at work, and understanding both is the difference between a fix that holds and one that lasts a week.

1. Folder type templates

Every folder in Windows 11 is assigned one of five templates: General items, Documents, Pictures, Music or Videos. Each template carries its own default layout and column set — a Pictures folder defaults to large thumbnails with a Date column, while a Documents folder defaults to Details view with Name, Date modified, Type and Size. Explorer still tries to guess a folder's template from what is inside it (a behaviour that began life in Windows Vista as Automatic Folder Type Discovery). Drop a few JPEGs into an ordinary folder and Windows may quietly re-optimise it for Pictures — and your carefully arranged Details columns vanish.

2. The per-folder Bags / BagMRU cache

Explorer remembers each folder's view — window size, column widths, sort order, group-by and the chosen template — in a registry cache made of two keys, Bags and BagMRU, under your user profile:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

By default Windows only remembers the view for roughly the first 5,000 folders you customise. Open a lot of folders and Explorer starts dropping the oldest entries from the cache; when a dropped folder is reopened it falls back to its template default, so a view you set months ago appears to reset for no reason. A corrupted cache produces the same symptom on far fewer folders.

Fix 1 — Set one view and apply it to all folders of a type

This is the fix most people actually need. You configure one folder perfectly, then tell Explorer to use that layout for every folder sharing the same template. Both controls involved are the ones Microsoft Support describes in File Explorer in Windows: the View menu on the ribbon for choosing icons, lists or details, and See more […] → Options for the options dialog.

1. Open a folder that represents the type you want to standardise — for example a plain Documents folder for the General items / Documents look.
2. Set it up exactly as you want it: choose View on the toolbar and pick a layout (Details is the usual choice), then right-click a column header to add or remove columns and drag the column edges to the widths you like. Set Sort by and Group by if you use them.
3. On the File Explorer toolbar, click the See more button (the three-dot … menu) and choose Options. This opens the Folder Options dialog.
4. Switch to the View tab.
5. Click Apply to Folders, then click Yes to confirm.
6. Click OK to close Folder Options.

Every folder that uses the same template will now open with this view. Repeat the process once for each template you care about (open a Pictures folder to set the picture layout, and so on).

On Windows 10 the steps are the same, but the entry point differs: open the folder, go to the View ribbon tab, click Options, then use the View tab and Apply to Folders.

Fix 2 — Pin a single folder's template so it stops switching

When just one folder keeps flipping — usually to the Pictures layout after you add images — the folder's template is being auto-detected. Lock it manually.

1. Right-click the misbehaving folder and choose Properties.
2. Open the Customize tab.
3. Under Optimize this folder for, choose the template you want — General items is the safest, most neutral choice for mixed folders.
4. If the folder has subfolders that should match, tick Also apply this template to all subfolders.
5. Click OK.

Setting the template explicitly overrides Explorer's guesswork, so the folder keeps the layout you gave it even as its contents change. Combine this with Fix 1 for the most durable result: pin the template, then apply your preferred view to that template across the board.

Fix 3 — Clear the cached views (Bags / BagMRU) and sign out

If views reset unpredictably, refuse to save, or look corrupted, the cache itself is the problem. Deleting it forces Explorer to rebuild every folder view from clean defaults. This removes your saved per-folder tweaks, so treat it as a reset rather than a preference change.

1. Press Windows + R, type regedit and press Enter. Approve the User Account Control prompt.
2. Navigate to:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

3. Right-click the Bags key and choose Delete; confirm with Yes.
4. Right-click the BagMRU key and choose Delete; confirm with Yes.
5. Close Registry Editor.
6. Sign out of Windows and sign back in (or restart). Explorer rebuilds the cache cleanly, and any view you set with Fix 1 becomes the fresh baseline.

Prefer the command line? The same deletion can be done in an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell, then sign out. Per the reg delete command reference on Microsoft Learn, HKCU is a valid root key, /f deletes without asking for confirmation, and a key name containing a space must be enclosed in quotes — which is why the paths below are quoted:

reg delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags" /f
reg delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU" /f

After signing back in, redo Fix 1 once to set your preferred view, and it will stick as new folders are opened.

Fix 4 — Raise the folder-view cache limit (optional, advanced)

If your views only reset after you have opened a great many folders, you are hitting the default 5,000-folder memory limit. You can raise it. Windows supports remembering up to about 20,000 folders; going higher is not recommended.

1. In Registry Editor, go to:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

2. Right-click an empty area of the right-hand pane and choose New → DWORD (32-bit) Value.
3. Name it exactly BagMRU Size (with the space).
4. Double-click it, set Base to Decimal, and enter a value such as 10000.
5. Click OK, close Registry Editor and sign out and back in.

This does not fix a template or cache-corruption problem — it only helps the specific case where sheer volume of folders is pushing your older views out of memory.

Between these four fixes, almost every "folder view keeps changing" complaint is solved: Fix 1 for a whole template, Fix 2 for a stubborn single folder, Fix 3 to clear a corrupted cache, and Fix 4 for the rare capacity problem. For more Explorer and registry walkthroughs, browse the Windows how-to guides or dig through the restored windows-now.com archive.