Pinned items on the taskbar are probably one of the most used apps or files/folders that you access in your daily workflow. Though this kind of ease of convenience might be underappreciated and go unnoticed until you are switching your computer or setting up a profile for yourself on another PC that you might have to use frequently.

Fortunately, you can take a backup of all the pinned items on your Taskbar and then restore them when you are switching computers or in an event where you had to completely wipe the PC and start afresh; it will definitely help you set things as per your preference a little bit faster.

Now, there are two ways you can go about this, either you can manually back up and restore or you can create batch files for respective tasks that can do this for you. Thus, let’s explore both of these options starting with the batch file method first.

Create a Batch File to Automatically Backup and Restore Pinned Items

This method is the simplest, fastest, and most convenient way to backup and restores the pinned items on your taskbar. Moreover, you can also send the batch file created by you to a not-so-tech-savvy near and dear one running a Windows machine and it will work flawlessly.

First, open the Start Menu and type Notepad. From the search results, click on the ‘Notepad’ tile to open it.

Then, type or copy+paste the below-mentioned code in the notepad file.

Note: Make sure you change the placeholder (dummy directory) in the below code to the actual directory of your saved registry file and the pinned items folder you backed up earlier. For instance, the actual directory might look like “E:\Taskbar Backup\Pinned Items.reg”

REG EXPORT HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband "[DRIVE LETTER:\FOLDER NAME\FILE NAME.reg]"

xcopy “%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar” “[DRIVE LETTER:\FOLDER NAME\]” /E /C /H /R /K /Y

Then, click on the ‘File’ tab present in the menu bar and select the ‘Save As’ option to proceed. This will open a separate window on your screen.

Next, give an appropriate file name with the extension .bat and click on the drop-down down menu following the ‘Save file as type’ and select the ‘All files’ option.

Now, to back up all the pinned items present on your taskbar, right-click on the .bat file you just created and click on the ‘Run as administrator’ option from the context menu.

A UAC screen might appear on your screen. If you are not logged in with an admin account, enter credentials for one. Otherwise, click on the ‘Yes’ button to run the file.

And that’s it, the pinned items on the taskbar are now backed up. You can find the files pertaining to it in the directory you mentioned while creating the batch file. Let’s now move ahead and learn how to restore the backed-up items.

To create a batch file for restoring the pinned items, open a new notepad file either by opening it from the pinned apps the Start Menu or by searching for it.

Then, type or copy+paste the below-mentioned code in the notepad file. After that, click on the ‘File tab’ present on the menu bar and click on the ‘Save file as’ option.

Note: Make sure you change the placeholder (dummy directory) in the below code to the actual directory of your registry file and the pinned items folder at the time of restoring. For instance, the actual directory might look like “E:\Taskbar Backup\Pinned Items.reg” 

REGEDIT /S "[DRIVE LETTER:\FOLDER NAME\FILE NAME.reg]"

xcopy "[DRIVE LETTER:\FOLDER NAME\]" "%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar" /E /C /H /R /K /Y

Now, on the ‘Save as’ window, give an appropriate file name with the suffix .bat as the file extension. Then, click on the drop-down menu following the ‘Save file as’ option and select the ‘All files’ option. Finally, click on the ‘Save’ button to save the file.

After that, copy your backup files on the system you wish to restore the pinned items on, and right-click on the file, and click on the ‘Run as administrator’ option to restore the items.

A UAC screen might appear on your screen. If you are not logged in with an admin account, enter credentials for one. Otherwise, click on the ‘Yes’ button to run the file.

Now, in case you are not able to see all you pinned items restored, restart your computer from the Start Menu and you shall be able to see the restored items.

Manually Backup and Restore Pinned Items Using Registry Editor

Navigating and dealing with Registry Editor might feel a bit technical for something as simple as taking a backup of pinned items on your taskbar. However, by no means it makes the process complicated.

To open Registry Editor, first open Start Menu and type Registry. Then, click on the ‘Registry Editor’ tile from the search results to open it.

Next, navigate to the below-mentioned registry address using the address bar present on the top section of the Registry Editor window.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband

After that, from the left section of the window, right-click on the ‘Taskband’ key and select the ‘Export’ option from the context menu. This will bring up a separate window on your screen.

From the separately opened window, locate the directory you wish to save the exported file (backup file of the registry entry) and click on the ‘Save’ button to export the file.

After that, open ‘This PC’ by double-clicking on the icon present on the desktop. Alternatively, you can also press Windows+E keys together on your keyboard to open it.

Then, paste the below-mentioned address in the address bar of the File Explorer and press Enter on your keyboard.

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

Now, copy all the contents of the folder by pressing Ctrl+C keys on your keyboard and paste them in a different directory by pressing the Ctrl+Vkeys to safeguard as the contents of the folder will be useful at the time of restoring.

Tip: It is recommended to save the contents of the folder in the same location you save the registry file to make sure you never forget to retrieve any files when trying to restore.

That’s it, you have successfully backed up your taskbar items. Let’s now move on to learn how to restore them manually.

To manually restore pinned items on your taskbar, open ‘This PC’ by double-clicking on the icon present on the Desktop. Alternatively, you can also press the Windows+E keys together on your keyboard to open it.

Note: If you are restoring the pinned items on another computer from which you backed up your files, make sure you have the backup files copied on the new system before proceeding.

Next, paste the below-mentioned address in the address bar of the file explorer and press Enter on your keyboard. This is the same directory you earlier copied the contents from. 

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

Now, copy the contents of your backup folder except the registry file and paste the copied content in this directory by pressing the Ctrl+V keys on your keyboard. If there are any conflicts, replace them with your backup files.

After that, copy and paste the registry file you exported earlier in the system you wish to restore the pinned items. Then, double-click the file to add it to the registry of the new system.

A UAC screen will appear on your screen. If you are not logged in with an admin account, enter credentials for one. Otherwise, click on the ‘Yes’ button to proceed.

Next, a prompt will appear on your screen notifying you regarding the consequences of adding an untrusted registry file. Click on the ‘Yes’ button from the pane to proceed.

Finally, restart your PC from the Start Menu. After the restart, you will be able to see all the pinned items you backed up are now restored.

That’s about it. Hopefully, this guide will make it much more convenient for you to switch PCs and/or create a new profile for yourself in another system.