ExplorerBridge

A fast Windows tray companion for external drives, project folders, quick jumping, and safer eject workflows.

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Download

Grab the latest Windows installer or portable build from the ExplorerBridge releases page.

• Use the MSI installer for the normal Windows install experience with Start Menu and Desktop shortcuts.
• Use the portable ZIP when you want to extract ExplorerBridge anywhere and run ExplorerBridge.exe directly.

What ExplorerBridge Does

ExplorerBridge is built for people who bounce between removable drives, project folders, creative app dialogs, and File Explorer all day.

Area	What you get
External drives	A searchable drive launcher for removable disks, USB SSDs, docked drives, aliases, favorites, eject, unmount, remount, and force mode.
Quick palette	One popup for captured folders, clipboard folders, recent paths, favorites, projects, drives, terminal, code editor, copy path, and Open/Save dialog navigation.
Safer ejection	ExplorerBridge can detect apps using a drive, show the blockers, request graceful close, and retry eject or unmount without force-killing apps.
Workflow memory	Stores recent paths, favorite paths, drive aliases, included fixed drives, and project workspaces under %AppData%\ExplorerBridge.
Diagnostics	Built-in settings, logs, hotkey status, and live drive detection checks.

Highlights

• Ctrl + Alt + D opens the external drive launcher.
• Ctrl + Alt + Space opens the quick palette.
• Ctrl + Alt + C captures the active File Explorer folder.
• Ctrl + Alt + V opens the captured folder.
• Ctrl + G quick-jumps to the captured folder.
• Optional startup registration for the current Windows user.
• Optional standard Windows Open/Save dialog navigation.
• Conservative drive actions: no formatting, no file moving, no indexing, and no drive-content writes.

Drive Safety Model

ExplorerBridge treats drive operations carefully:

• Normal eject uses the Windows shell eject flow.
• Normal unmount removes the drive-letter mount point through Windows mountvol.
• Force mode asks Windows to force-dismount before ejecting or unmounting.
• If a drive is busy, ExplorerBridge scans for likely blocker processes and asks before closing anything.
• Close requests are graceful. ExplorerBridge does not force-kill user apps.

Force mode can still be risky if files are actively writing. Finish copies and saves before ejecting a drive.

Build From Source

Requirements:

• Windows
• .NET SDK 8 or newer
• .NET 8 Windows Desktop runtime

Build:

dotnet build ExplorerBridge.sln

Run tests:

dotnet test ExplorerBridge.sln

Run locally:

dotnet run --project ExplorerBridge\ExplorerBridge.csproj

Create a portable release build:

.\publish-explorerbridge.ps1

Create a self-contained release build:

.\publish-explorerbridge.ps1 -SelfContained

Published files are written to artifacts\ExplorerBridge-Release-win-x64.

Create an MSI installer:

.\build-installer.ps1

The installer is written to artifacts\ExplorerBridge-v1.0.0-win-x64-setup.msi.

Project Notes

• Architecture notes live in docs/architecture.md.
• Manual release checks live in docs/smoke-test-checklist.md.
• Future creative-app workflow ideas live in docs/future-roadmap.md.
• Settings and logs are stored under %AppData%\ExplorerBridge.

Known Limits

• Open/Save dialog support targets standard Windows dialogs. Generic Windows dialogs plus Chrome, Edge, and Photoshop have been exercised successfully. Apps with heavily customized pickers, such as DaVinci Resolve, may need future app-aware profiles.
• Some HDD docks expose inserted disks as fixed SATA/internal disks. Add those drive letters under Settings > Included fixed drives.
• Drive labels and external-drive type detection are best-effort based on Windows drive and WMI metadata.
• Explorer path sync focuses on normal File Explorer folders. Special shell locations such as This PC, Recycle Bin, Control Panel, and search results are rejected when they do not resolve to real folders.

Version

Current release: v1.0.0