Forum Discussion
Completely get rid of "Group By" anywhere in File Explorer
As my title says I wish to Completely get rid of "Group By" anywhere in File Explorer. I've tried many things but to no avail. At the moment I am noticing one folder inparticular that constantly resets to a group by date, even though it displays (None) as selected. This folder is my download folder whose path was changed to a folder on an alternate drive. Is there a way to DISABLE Group by for any file/folder on the computer? I have Windows 11 Pro (24H2) updated to present.
26 Replies
How to completely remove the group sorting from the system? because i really hate suddenly it revoke back the setting and it really annoying when it happen and need to set it back.
Typical Microsoft user-hostility. The sheer arrogance of a company that has decided it can dictate how users can use their OWM computers. Of course, seeing as people like Bill Gates are all in on the idea you shouldn't be allowed to own anything, it probably fits their agenda (and don't think that even if BG isn't officially at the head of the company that he isn't manipulating their policies anyway).
The problem stems from how Windows handles "Folder Types." The Downloads folder has a specific template that, in many versions of Windows 11, is hardcoded to group by date. This overrides your manual "Group by > None" setting.
WinSetView did the trick for me. Installed via winget, 45 seconds later my woes were over. Amazing!
Use https://lesferch.github.io/WinSetView/. Worked for me.
F**bleep** your groupby insistence
not sure who that id..t engineer that decided this is a good option that does not work and causes so much annoyance....
Here's what I had to do December 2025...
- Open file explorer
- Click Sort drop down
- Group by > none
- Open Options by clicking 3 dots next to view drop down
- Click View tab
- Click Apply to Folders
- Click OK and close file explorer and reopen
Holaway My research indicates that the "UseAutoGrouping" registry value does nothing at all. Presumably you marked that reply as the "solution". If so, how did you conclude that it was a correct answer? My issue is that incorrect answers get propagated by other users and AI bots. Assuming you cannot prove this setting does anything, I'm kindly requesting that you unmark that reply as a solution.
At the link below, I have documented all known methods to disable grouping for all possible views of Downloads folder, be it within Explorer or an app's file open/save dialog. These are fully tested solutions:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3840386/completely-disable-file-grouping-always-everywhere
IT DOESN-T WORK ANYMORE!
Just to display how stupid this grouping is. I sorted a bunch of files by name and I get this result
