The most popular homebrew tool to date, ‘Folders for Windows Phone’, has been updated to version 3. Considering its huge popularity, this tool has received the attention of its developer before Christmas. Version 3 brings application optimization, support for custom accents and minor bug fixings (changelog at the end of the post).

Analogous to Folders feature in iOS, this application will let you clean your homescreen by rearranging homebrew and other applications in the Folder. This also gives users a freedom to arrange the applications in better way. Initially, it was intended to provide a simple way to organize all the files/tiles in Folder, but after receiving positive response from other users, it was released to the public.

This is the same team who also developed Themes for WP7 that let you create custom theme for your Windows Phone. Both of them requires you to have chevronwp7/developer unlocked windows phone device. However, you do not need to perform Interop unlock process for this tweaks to work. You also need to have Windows Phone Mango OS installed on your device.

Folders for Windows Phone Features

• Create folders to pin to your start screen
• Add marketplace, homebrew apps and websites easily
• Automatic marketplace look-up
• Shortcuts to WiFi, Bluetooth, Flight mode and cellular settings
• Custom grouping
• Ability to use applications from other marketplace (e.g. fr-FR)
• Able to save the XAP file to deploy manually using tool like TOM XAP Installer

Due to restrictions imposed by Microsoft, the operation of creating Folders is not as easy as you would expect it to be. Unlike, Folders features on iOS, you can not create Folders directly onto your device. You would need to use desktop application and group related marketplace and/or homebrew app to install the folder. Folders for Windows Phone comes with many restriction and you’ll have to recreate folder on desktop and deploy it again, which itself is a time consuming process. This might change in future when Microsoft grants deeper OS access to the developer.

Note: You should have unlocked windows phone  and Mango OS installed in order to use this function

How to Create Folders on Windows Phone

Step 1: Download Folders for Windows Phone

Step 2: Open Zip archive and run FolderConfig.exe file from it

Step 3: Click on ‘Add Folder’ and give it an appropriate name. For example, to group all homebrew app create a folder name ‘Homebrew’ so it will be easily to understand all the app belongs to same category.

Step 4: To add application(s) click on ‘Add’ button. From here, you can search marketplace app as well as open homebrew XAP file.

Step 5: Once deciding all the apps, click on ‘Okay’.

Step 6: Make sure Zune player is running on your device is connected to your PC via USB cable. You should also pin unlock your device before deploying folder onto your device.

Step 7: Click on ‘Deploy’ button to deploy the folder onto your device. Alternatively, you can also save XAP file for later use.

That’s it!!! Now you can arrange things more proficiently on your Windows Phone.