Explorer Session Saver

Entry 10: Composing Sessions

What began as session merging has grown into a way to compose saved workspaces. Paths can be moved, copied, inserted precisely, or collected into a new session. A picker can add open tabs from several File Explorer windows to an existing session or create a new one. Session comparison shows shared and session-specific paths before a transfer, while a root relocation preview shows every affected path. Cut, copy, paste, undo, redo, and imports of folder items from File Explorer round out the workflow. One feature has become a connected toolkit for shaping sessions.

Entry 9: Reworking Sessions

The next ESS update is taking shape. I have been working on session merging and drag-and-drop movement of paths between saved sessions. Together, these features should make reorganizing a workspace direct instead of requiring sessions to be rebuilt by hand, and the work is nearly complete. I am also exploring a way to add tabs from an open File Explorer window to an existing session, extending it without replacing what is already saved. As ESS becomes more flexible, what would you most like to see it do next?

Entry 8: Five Months In

ESS is five months old, but its changelog already spans ten releases, nine updates after launch. Version 1 established the foundation: saving and restoring File Explorer tabs, then improving reliability, backups, customization, and recovery. Version 2 marked the biggest leap. ESS became more than a tab-saving utility; it became a workspace manager, with collapsible groups, natural and custom ordering, stable session identities, offline-path handling, moved-folder tracking, stronger recovery, safer storage and migration, broader CLI controls, and support for 11 languages. The original idea stayed simple. Everything around it grew more capable.

Entry 7: Catching Up

For six entries, I’ve used this diary to explain how Explorer Session Saver came to be: the daily frustration, the first rough automation, and the decisions that turned it into a public product. That history matters, but it is time to catch up. From here, I’ll share recent releases, features in development, ideas that worked, and failures that forced a better approach. ESS has changed continuously since launch, often because real use exposed something testing did not. The origin is recorded. Now the diary follows what ESS is becoming.

Entry 6: Why I Made ESS Public

Explorer Session Saver did not become public because I knew there was a market. Building a software business taught me that Windows apps must earn trust, but I refused to release something hollow for downloads. ESS solved a problem I had lived with, so I offered it without tracking or data collection, translated it into 11 languages, and kept improving it. I still wonder whether others need it as much as I do, but I cannot be the only person tired of rebuilding the same workspace every day.

Entry 5: A Session, Not a Shortcut

Explorer Session Saver is more than a list of shortcuts. It gives me one place to store hundreds of named sessions, organize them into groups, and tailor each set of folder paths to a specific task. I can build a session once and restore it in seconds whenever I need it. That matters when I have five construction projects under review, each with details buried in nested folders. ESS shows the restore as it happens, identifies failures, lets me resume, and handles temporary locations without breaking the entire session.

Entry 4: From Prototype to Product

Once Explorer paths could be captured, saved under a meaningful session name, and rebuilt with one click, Explorer Session Saver stopped feeling like an experiment. COM-based Explorer enumeration replaced the visible copy-and-paste process and eliminated the distracting flicker. I kept the activity mask, but turned it into a useful progress layer showing paths, status, controls, and cancellation. The Manager added editing, reordering, grouping, and quick review, while the system tray kept restoration out of the way. That was when ESS became a product.

Entry 3: Working With Windows, Not Replacing It

On Windows 10, my workspace was usually six File Explorer windows, minimized and selected by hovering over the taskbar. Pinned folders and third-party tab tools helped, but none could restore what I rebuilt every morning or whenever I switched projects. Windows 11 changed my thinking. Native tabs suggested that folder paths could be captured, saved, and reopened within Explorer rather than replacing it. The first version used copy-and-paste automation—and plenty of flicker—but when one click rebuilt a complete tabbed workspace, the idea became real.

Entry 2: Turning Experience Into a Product

Software development isn’t my primary profession, but I wasn’t starting from zero. Over the years, I had built practical tools and learned how software, data, and workflows connect. Explorer Session Saver began as a solution, not a business plan. AI-assisted development helped me turn field experience and a recurring frustration into a complete application. I tested each feature against how I use folders on real projects. Building it showed me that useful software often begins with understanding a problem well enough to know what a better process should feel like.

For more than a decade, I’ve worked in construction. Every project lives inside a maze of folders and subfolders, a digital filing cabinet I open and navigate. I need quick access to drawings, reports, photos, specifications, and inspection records. At day’s end, I close everything, only to rebuild the same workspace the next morning. After years of accepting that routine, I used AI-assisted development to create Explorer Session Saver, a tool that saves and restores my open folders as a session. It solved a real, recurring problem for me, and now I’m ready to share it.