Best Way to Open More Than 15 Files Simultaneously From Context Menu

In the Windows File Explorer, you might be startled to find that tools like Open, Print, and Edit vanish from the context menu if you have opened more than 15 files at once from the context menu.

These context menu commands are disabled intentionally by Microsoft. This prevents doing registry actions from the context menu on a lot of files at once, which can make your device unresponsive.

However, there is a straightforward Registry change you may use to unlock context menu items if you need to make them available for more than 15 files. Here’s how to go about it.

Use the Registry Editor

The registry is a database that stores configuration settings for the operating system, installed applications, and hardware devices, and the Windows registry editor is a powerful tool that allows you to edit the Windows registry. You can also tweak the registry editor to accommodate more than 15 files at once by following the steps below.

1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialogue, type regedit in the text field and hit Enter.
   
2. Next, navigate to the following Registry key.
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
   
3. Click on an empty space and create a 32-bit DWORD Value file.
   
4. Name the newly created file as MultipleInvokePromptMinimum.
   
5. Double-click on the MultipleInvokePromptMinimum file and set the value data to the number of files you wish to open at once. In the example below, I selected 200, and I will be able to access context menu commands for up to 200 selected files.
   
6. Your device will apply these modifications automatically, and you should be able to open more than 15 files at once.
   

Rounding up

This is as much as we can write on how to open more than 15 files at once from the context menu, so ensure to carefully follow the steps outlined above to get a positive result.

Also remember to back up your registry before making changes to it, so that if anything goes wrong, you can restore it to its former state. We recommend checking out this cool article that talks about how to change the file type in Windows 11.