In Windows, you can set up your own keyboard shortcut to open USB Drive or other utilities so that you don’t end up wasting time navigating through settings. A large majority of users use external USB-connected drives on a regular basis. So, for them creating a keyboard shortcut for opening a USB drive directly might seem a viable option.
Create Keyboard Shortcut to open USB Drive in Windows 11/10
Keyboard shortcuts are keys or combinations of keys that provide an alternative way to do something that you’d typically do with a mouse. Many users find that using a keyboard with keyboard shortcuts for routine tasks helps them work more efficiently. The procedure to create a Keyboard Shortcut to open USB Drive is as follows:
- Connect your USB flash drive to your PC.
- Open the Run dialog box.
- Type diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
- Right-click the USB drive under File Explorer and choose the Change Drive Letter and Paths option.
- Assign a letter to the drive.
- Format the disk.
- Right-click on the USB drive icon on the Desktop and choose Create shortcut option.
- On the desktop screen, right-click on the shortcut icon of your USB drive and then choose Properties from the available options.
- Switch to the Shortcuts tab, enter a keyboard shortcut and hit the Apply button.
Let’s cover the above steps in a bit more detail!
Firstly, plug-in the USB flash drive to your PC. Close all the opened files and programs or files.
Open the Disk Management tool. For this, press the Windows+R keys in combination to open the Run dialog box. Type diskmgmt.msc in the empty field of the box and hit the Enter key.
When the Disk Management window opens, right-click on your USB drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths from the list of options visible.
Instantly, Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog should popup on your computer screen.
Locate the Change button to select it and enter a drive letter. Press OK button to assign the selected letter to your USB drive and confirm the changes.
When prompted with the following message – Some programs that rely on drive letters may not run correctly. Do you want to continue? Click the Yes button.
Now, you’ll need to format the disk. So, click the Format disk button to continue.
Once formatting is finished, click OK.
Now, it’s time to create a shortcut key for your USB flash drive. So, go to File Explorer, choose This PC.
Right-click the USB drive you’ve just assigned a name and choose the Create shortcut option to create a Desktop shortcut.
Right-click the shortcut icon of your USB drive and select Properties to open the USB Drive Properties dialog box.
Switch to the Shortcut tab.
Now, inside the Shortcut key box, enter a keyboard shortcut and then hit the Apply button. Click Apply > OK.
Hereafter, just use the assigned keyboard shortcut to open the USB Drive in Windows 11 or Windows 10.
Related: USB Disk Ejector lets you eject USB Disk with a keyboard shortcut.
How do I create a hotkey?
A hotkey is a sequence of keys programmed to execute a command or perform a specific task in a software application. You can add a hotkey to any software or website shortcut on the Desktop. Right-click the desktop shortcut and select Properties from the menu. Thereafter, click the Shortcut key box and enter a new keyboard shortcut for the program or web page. Lastly, assign a letter to set up the new hotkey.
TIP: Desktop Media, Desk Drive, DriveShortcut will automatically create desktop shortcuts to removable media and drives when you connect the USB, DVD, etc to PC.
What is the shortcut key to eject USB?
The simplest way to eject USB in Windows is to right-click its icon under Show Hidden icons on the Taskbar and choose Eject USB. Alternatively, you can press Command + E to eject the flash drive.
That’s all there is to it!