How to Enable Single Click for Windows Files, Folders and Application Shortcuts?

Enable Single Click in Windows

Did you know that you can open files and folders by doing a single click on Windows if, you will enable single click feature on your Windows PC. I am sure a few of you don’t know the single click feature of Windows.

Doesn’t make any difference whether you are using a laptop (touch-pad/wireless mouse) or desktop computer. By default, the Windows operating system is set with a double-click option to open files, folders or any installed Windows application.

Many users do not like the double click feature on a Windows computer. Mostly old age computer users. They have hard time using a mouse with a double click feature to open any file or folder.

Sometimes they get frustrated doing double clicks with no result.

Reason: Double click works if you click fast. If someone takes time doing a double click, the operating system won’t initiate the command to open file, folder or an application.

Therefore, many users tend to prefer the single click option to open files and folders instantly as they click.

So here is the good news for you all: Yes, there is a provision in Windows wherein you can configure or enable a single click in the operating system.

How to Configure Single Click Mouse Settings?

This article shows you a complete guide to configure or enable a single click on a Windows computer.

The steps shown in this post are for Windows 10 and will work with the later Windows version as well. However, the steps are bit vary in Windows Vista, 7 and 8.1.

Step 1. Open the Windows Control Panel.

To open the control panel, press Win + R to open the Run dialog box and type, control then hit OK button to open.

Step 2. Now, go to the top right of the control panel screen and navigate to View by: and from the drop down, change category to Small icon to get the entire control panel component list.

Step 3. Locate and click on File Explorer Options to open it (In Windows 7 and 8.1, click on Folder Options)

single mouse click configuration

Step 4. File Explorer Options properties will be on your screen.

  1. Under General Tab, select radio button of Single-click to open an item (point to select)
  2. By default, Underline icon titles consistent with my browser is selected
  3. Finally, click Apply and OK to close file explorer properties

enable single click

Step 5. Once you are done with the above steps, that means we have successfully configured or enabled a single click option to open files, folders or any software application shortcuts.

Now all of your files, folders and shortcuts are underlined which means doing a single click will work. Check the image below:

single mouse click

Note: Whenever you want to restore to the default mouse click settings, just go to step 4 and click Restore Defaults button and click Apply and OK.

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