Your recent files, one shortcut away.
Press Left Ctrl + Space anywhere in Windows to jump back to the files and folders you opened recently.
The Folder and File filters are always there. The rest change on their own: they show the extensions that appear most often among your last 20 files (up to 4), most frequent first.
- Download
LastFolder-<version>-win-x64.zipfrom the latest release. - Unzip it anywhere and run
LastFolder.exe. It goes straight to the system tray. - Press Left Ctrl + Space.
LastFolder needs the .NET 9 Desktop Runtime (x64). If it is missing, Windows offers to download it on first start.
The exe is not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may warn the first time you run it. Click More info → Run anyway.
- Global shortcut: Left Ctrl + Space opens the launcher on the screen where your mouse is (Right Ctrl + Space and other modifier combinations are left alone).
- Lists your recently opened files and folders, newest first, with real Windows icons, relative times and file sizes.
- Instant search as you type. Every word must appear in the name; a word starting with a dot (for example
.pdf) filters by extension. - Filter chips: All, Folder, File, plus the extensions you used most among your recent files.
- Open an item, show it in its folder, or copy its full path.
- Lives in the system tray; the window hides when it loses focus.
- English and Turkish UI.
- Optional "Start with Windows".
| Key / action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Left Ctrl + Space | Show / hide the launcher |
| Type | Search by name (.ext filters by extension) |
| Up / Down | Move the selection |
| Page Up / Page Down | Move the selection by 8 rows |
| Enter | Open the selected item |
| Ctrl + Enter | Show the selected item in its folder |
| Ctrl + C | Copy the selected item's path (when no search text is selected) |
| Tab / Shift + Tab | Cycle through the filter chips |
| Esc | Hide the launcher |
| Double-click a row | Open the item |
| Row buttons | Show in folder / copy path |
| Drag the header | Move the window |
Tray icon: left-click opens the launcher; right-click opens the menu (Open, Start with Windows, Language, Exit). Closing the window (or Alt+F4) only hides it; use Exit in the tray menu to quit. Starting the app again while it is running just brings up the launcher.
Command-line switches: --silent starts without the tray balloon, --show opens the launcher right away.
- Windows 10 or Windows 11 (x64)
- To run: .NET 9 Desktop Runtime
- To build: .NET 9 SDK
git clone https://github.com/00xSky/LastFolder.git
cd LastFolder
dotnet runPublish a single-file release build, the same way the release zip is made:
dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:DebugType=none -o publishThen run publish\LastFolder.exe. Use --self-contained true if the target machine has no .NET runtime installed.
For development, LastFolder.exe --snapshot <file.png> renders the launcher to a PNG and exits; add --demo to use made-up sample items in English (that is how the screenshot above was made).
The UI is in English by default. Switch it from the tray menu: Language → English / Türkçe. The change applies immediately and is remembered per user (HKCU\Software\LastFolder, value Language). Dates and numbers follow the selected language.
Tick Start with Windows in the tray menu. This adds a LastFolder entry under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run that starts the app with --silent; untick it to remove the entry.
Windows keeps a shortcut (.lnk) for every file and folder you open in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent. Each time the launcher opens, LastFolder reads that folder, resolves the shortcuts with IShellLink, drops entries that no longer exist (network paths are not checked, so an offline server cannot freeze the app) and skips .exe / .lnk targets. The shortcut is caught with a low-level keyboard hook (WH_KEYBOARD_LL), because RegisterHotKey cannot tell the left and right Ctrl keys apart.
LastFolder only reads your local Recent folder. It has no network code, collects nothing and sends nothing anywhere; everything stays on your machine.
Free to use, modify and share, but not to sell.
LastFolder is released under the MIT License with the Commons Clause condition. You may use, copy, modify and redistribute it, at home or at work. You may not sell it, or sell a product or service whose value comes mainly from it. See LICENSE for the full text.
Because of the Commons Clause, LastFolder is source-available rather than open source in the OSI sense.