dwmkerr/sharpshell

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1678 stars · 267 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

SharpShell is a .NET Framework framework that simplifies creating Windows Shell Extensions, handling the COM interop and registration plumbing so developers can write managed handlers in C#. It supports context menus, icon and icon overlay handlers, info tips, drop handlers, preview and thumbnail handlers, property sheets, and desk bands.

Use cases

• add custom right-click context menu items in Windows Explorer
• create a thumbnail handler for a custom file type
• show previews of custom file formats in the Explorer preview pane
• add custom icon overlays to files and folders in Windows
• build a Windows shell extension in C# instead of C++ COM
• create info tips that display tooltips for file types
• add a desk band toolbar to the Windows taskbar

When to choose

• you need Windows Explorer integration (context menus, thumbnails, previews, icons) from managed .NET code
• you want to avoid hand-writing raw COM shell extension code in C++
• you want a battle-tested NuGet package with tooling for server registration and testing

When to avoid

• your project targets .NET Core / .NET 5+ rather than the .NET Framework
• you need cross-platform shell or file-manager integration outside Windows
• you need a shell extension type not among the supported handlers, such as namespace extensions

Facets

framework · maturity stable

plugin-system developer-tools developer-tools windows operating-systems desktop-applications windows dotnet shell-extensions windows-explorer context-menu-handler icon-handler thumbnail-handler preview-handler icon-overlay desk-band com-interop csharp nuget desktop

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