Any folder: matching by name

With Any folder ticked, the member is matched by file name wherever it runs from — which is what survives an application updating into a new versioned folder.

By default a member is one exact file: C:\Program Files\Example\app.exe and nothing else. Windows whose program lives at that path join the group; anything else does not.

Tick Any folder and the member matches any program with that file name, wherever it is.

When to use it

For anything that updates into a new versioned folder. Fork, Sourcetree, GitHub Desktop and Visual Studio Code all do this: today's app-3.4.31\SourceTree.exe is next month's app-3.5.0\SourceTree.exe, and an exact path stops matching the moment the program updates itself.

When not to

When two members share a file name and you need to tell them apart. A group can legitimately hold devenv.exe from two Visual Studio installations; with name matching, PerchBar could no longer tell which is which. That is why the setting is per member and off by default rather than global.

Ticking Any folder changes only matching. The path in the Program column is still what gets started when the member is launched.

Store apps look after themselves

An app from the Microsoft Store keeps its version in the folder name — Microsoft.OutlookForWindows_1.2026.730.100_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe — so every path you save for one goes stale the next time it updates. PerchBar handles that for you: a path under WindowsApps that no longer exists is looked up again by the app's package identity, which does not change between versions.

So a Store app needs one member, not one per version, and the group's icon keeps working too — the pinned button's icon is refreshed when the app moves. Nothing to tick, and Any folder is not needed for this.