In addition to its already not very good performance, the Windows 11 file explorer recently had further problems with a February update and, according to a report from Windowslatest, it is unclear whether Microsoft's implementation will ever be improved in terms of speed. As a trick to speed things up, deactivating automatic folder recognition can be particularly helpful when opening large folders.
Automatic folder detection is a well-known feature that was added to Windows XP and allows Explorer to apply an appropriate template to a folder depending on the content type. For example, a folder can display the thumbnail view by default if the majority of the folder's contents consist of images or videos.
However, disabling this feature to automatically detect folder type for folders containing hundreds or thousands of files can noticeably speed up Explorer performance, even on high-end hardware, according to Windowslatest. However, this is only worthwhile for large folders and if you can really do without the function or if you set the view manually anyway.
Windows 11: Kleiner Explorer-Registry-Hack
The simplest solution to deactivation is to create a new value in the Windows registry to bypass the automatic determination of the folder type. Using the registry editor, the directory HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell is selected and a new value with the name “FolderType” is entered as “NotSpecified”. Alternatively, Windowslatest also provides the corresponding registration file via Discord.
Source: windowslatest.com Windows 11: Trick how to open large folders faster
After that, File Explorer no longer spends time scanning each file to decide how to display the folder's contents, but unifies all folders. If you want to undo the change, remove the “NotSpecified” value from the registry entry and save the change. This “registration trick” is not new per se, but has been known since the XP era, but according to the report it is becoming more noticeable again under Windows 11 and has recently received comparatively much attention with the short message service X discussed.