Environmental Variables For Folder Navigation

Environmental Variables

Posted by royzkie on February 06, 2025 · 1 min read

List of most commonly used environmental variables for folder navigation in Windows:

Copy the variables (%xxxx%) into the windows explorer address bar and hit enter.

%AppData% - "C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming"

%ALLUSERSPROFILE% or %PROGRAMDATA% - "C:\ProgramData"

%CommonProgramFiles(x86)% or %CommonProgramW6432% - "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files"

%LOCALAPPDATA% - "C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local"

%OneDrive% - access your OneDrive folder

%ProgramFiles% - "C:\Program Files"

%SystemRoot% - "C:\Windows"

%TEMP% or \%TMP\% - "C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Temp"

%SystemDrive% - "C:\"

%USERPROFILE% - "C:\Users\{username}"

%windir% - "C:\Windows"

There are other environmental variables, but the ones listed above are the most common I remembered from the top of my head.

For more examples and more information about environmental variables, check this out.

Additional:

I recently found out that shell can also open folder locations.

Typing "Shell:Startup" to the windows explorer address bar opens up the start up folder. You can paste a link or any executables here and it will run on windows startup.