Adding a Program to the SendTo Menu

Recently, I answered some questions from a subscriber about the Send To menu. He wanted to add a program to the "Open with…" context menu — the menu that pops up when you right-click on an ion.

Unfortunately, I have not found a reliable way to add a program there. Fortunately, it’s very easy to add a program to the "Send To" option on the popup “context menu.”

He wrote:

Among the photo-editing programs I have is an old version of MS Picture It! which has a couple of neat features. But I’m having a problem. When I right-click on a picture that I want to work on, I get the PREVIEW menu hopefully in order to select this program. But it’s not on the list. I select CHOOSE PROGRAM and find myself in the C-drive program list. My program is there, but I can’t get it onto the PREVIEW list. Instead, I have a list of the components of the program from which I can’t find one to do the loading. Of course, I can go the other route by starting with Picture It! and tell it to load the picture–that works. But, for convenience, I’d like to be able to use the first method too. Any suggestions, please?

You can drag the MSPictureIt icon into your “SendTo” folder to add it to the Send To menu. The SendTo folder is found at:
C:\Documents and Settings\[YourUserID]\SendTo

If you don’t see the SendTo folder in C:\Documents and Settings\[YourUserID], then your first step is to change Windows Explorer’s View options to Show hidden files and folders. See the previous article “” for instructions on how do do this.

In left-hand pane of the two-column view in Windows Explorer, if a folder is “Hidden” and you have "show hidden files and folders" turned on, the folder looks like any other. But, in the right-hand pane, it is ghosted so you can see that it is hidden.

Once you can see the SendTo folder in Windows Explorer, you should right-click on the program file for the program you wish to have show up in the SendTo context menu.

If you right-clicking on the actual program file (and not a Shortcut), hold down the right mouse button and drag the icon to the SendTo folder. At that point, release the right mouse button and select “Create Shortcut(s) here.”

If you right-clicking on a Shortcut, then hold down the right mouse button and drag the Shortcut to the SendTo folder. At that point, release the right mouse button and select “Copy.”

(click on the image for a larger version)

Then, when you right click on an item, it will show up as a SendTo option — not just for pictures but for anything. This is kind of brute-force plugging it into a context menu, but it will get there.

A couple other good shortcuts to put in the SendTo menu are Notepad and WordPad (known as write.exe in WinXP. Just like any other icon, you can right-click on an icon in the SendTo folder, select Properties, and change the icon’s text.