Open Explorer on a File

How to open Explorer with a specific file selected?

Easiest way without using Win32 shell functions is to simply launch explorer.exe with the /select parameter. For example, launching the process

explorer.exe /select,"C:\Folder\subfolder\file.txt"

will open a new explorer window to C:\Folder\subfolder with file.txt selected.

If you wish to do it programmatically without launching a new process, you'll need to use the shell function SHOpenFolderAndSelectItems, which is what the /select command to explorer.exe will use internally. Note that this requires the use of PIDLs, and can be a real PITA if you are not familiar with how the shell APIs work.

Here's a complete, programmatic implementation of the /select approach, with path cleanup thanks to suggestions from @Bhushan and @tehDorf:

public bool ExploreFile(string filePath) {
    if (!System.IO.File.Exists(filePath)) {
        return false;
    }
    //Clean up file path so it can be navigated OK
    filePath = System.IO.Path.GetFullPath(filePath);
    System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("explorer.exe", string.Format("/select,\"{0}\"", filePath));
    return true;
}

Reference: Explorer.exe Command-line switches

Open explorer on a file

From Geoff Chappell's The Windows Explorer Command Line

import subprocess
subprocess.Popen(r'explorer /select,"C:\path\of\folder\file"')

Opening a folder in explorer and selecting a file

Use this method:

Process.Start(String, String)

First argument is an application (explorer.exe), second method argument are arguments of the application you run.

For example:

in CMD:

explorer.exe -p

in C#:

Process.Start("explorer.exe", "-p")

Open File explorer from command line in Command Prompt

Either start . or explorer . will open Explorer in the current folder.

From PowerShell it's Invoke-Item ., ii ., or also explorer ..

Open Windows Explorer and perform a search

I got it working. It was in fact very simple. Assume I am searching for files with filename containing the term "mat" in folder "C:\temp1". The explorer window has the title "CustomSearch". It works in Windows 10.

string searchLink = "search-ms:displayname=CustomSearch&crumb=filename%3A*mat%20&crumb=location:C%3A%5Ctemp1";
Process.Start(searchLink);

Open Windows Explorer directory, select a specific file (in Delphi)

Yes, you can use the /select flag when you call explorer.exe:

ShellExecute(0, nil, 'explorer.exe', '/select,C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe', nil,
  SW_SHOWNORMAL)

A somewhat more fancy (and perhaps also more reliable) approach (uses ShellAPI, ShlObj):

const
  OFASI_EDIT = $0001;
  OFASI_OPENDESKTOP = $0002;

{$IFDEF UNICODE}
function ILCreateFromPath(pszPath: PChar): PItemIDList stdcall; external shell32
  name 'ILCreateFromPathW';
{$ELSE}
function ILCreateFromPath(pszPath: PChar): PItemIDList stdcall; external shell32
  name 'ILCreateFromPathA';
{$ENDIF}
procedure ILFree(pidl: PItemIDList) stdcall; external shell32;
function SHOpenFolderAndSelectItems(pidlFolder: PItemIDList; cidl: Cardinal;
  apidl: pointer; dwFlags: DWORD): HRESULT; stdcall; external shell32;

function OpenFolderAndSelectFile(const FileName: string): boolean;
var
  IIDL: PItemIDList;
begin
  result := false;
  IIDL := ILCreateFromPath(PChar(FileName));
  if IIDL <> nil then
    try
      result := SHOpenFolderAndSelectItems(IIDL, 0, nil, 0) = S_OK;
    finally
      ILFree(IIDL);
    end;
end;

Open a folder with File explorer using .bat

You can try like this:

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe "c:\Yaya\yoyo\"

How do I open an Explorer window in a given directory from cmd.exe?

In Windows you can open Explorer with the following command:

C:\Users\Leniel>start %windir%\explorer.exe

If you want it to open a specific folder, do this for example:

C:\Users\Leniel>start %windir%\explorer.exe "C:\Users\Leniel\Desktop"

Open File Explorer at specified folder using R (or specifically R Studio) in Windows

The utils::browseURL() function is part of base R, since the utils package is installed as part of R. The function opens a URL, which can be of a website or a local folder.

So to open the current working directory in a File Explorer window:

utils::browseURL(getwd())

# or any other folder
utils::browseURL("myfolder/myfolder2/")

Opening directory in file explorer from WSL2

Answer is in post, but I will type it here again.
Put this function in your ~/.bashrc

start(){
    path=$(wslpath -w "$1")
    /mnt/c/Windows/explorer.exe "$path"
}

Now when you type start "Some Path" you will open it in file explorer. You can also remove /mnt/c/Windows/ from /mnt/c/Windows/explorer.exe if you want.

PTH (Path to here): Basically what my problem was that I was trying to read user input for the path to recreate the start command from cmd and powershell, but in wsl2 that was a lot harder because it doesn't have GUI so it doesn't know how to open it using xdg-open or other tools. Using read command from bash was not good enough because of the newline it always gives the user to type, but this uses arguments and takes the next thing you type in bash instantly which is awesome. Functions in bash work with arguments like lets say programs in c where you type ./program arg1 arg2 arg3..., where in bash it is the same, the number indicating the argument, so $0 is the zero-th argument which is always the name, so we don't use it. Starting from $1 $2 $3 and so on are the arguments which are usable in bash functions. In our case typing "start Desktop/", $1 is assigned "Desktop/", which is then converted to C:\Users<Your Username>\Desktop and assigned to $path. Then $path is passed to /mnt/c/Windows/explorer.exe to finally open in file explorer. Pretty nifty right? That's what I said first time 1 minute ago when I first saw and understood bash functions.

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