File Explorer Being Extremely Slow

I've seen that with folders that have many pictures and videos. It's just how things work.

Keeping folders small, say with 200 files tops makes it much faster.

There are other possible causes, like:
- the hard disk has become bad
- you installed a bad right-click extension
- malware

Things you can to try to find the cause:
- see how File Explorer behaves with a USB-stick and an external hard disk
- see how File Explorer behaves after booting into Safe Mode (google how to do that in Windows 10)
- install Windows 10 on a new hard disk or SSD (keep the old one, then you don't lose anyhing) and see if it's fast then
- reset Windows

Please tell the results of your experiments.

When did you last Defrag the Drive?

As Windows runs it fragments the Hard Drive and you need to regularly defrag it to keep things working the way that they should.

I've seen cases where some people put way too much into a folder and it takes much longer than that to open where they have 120 Gig of Music Files or lots of folders inside a folder but the most common issue for slow opening times is a badly fragmented drive.

If File Explorer is slow on your PC, you might be able to fix it by changing the File Explorer options. To do that, simply open File Explorer Options and navigate to the View tab. In the Advanced settings section check the Launch folder windows in a separate process option. Click Apply and OK to save changes.

hi buddy.
you can try to clear your temp files, deleting files in recycle bin, move your data from the download folder to another disk drive.
hopefully, this will fix your problem

If the files are taking long only for photos then it is because it adds templates, to allow you to preview them which takes longer. If thumbnails are not important then disable thumbnails in File Explorer settings.