I'm sure you try to limit how much "fluff" your UI must support, but I wish a relatively minor UI pattern "just worked" in your File Manger. Specifically the additional forward/back thumb buttons (for "in browsers" at least) that premium and gaming mice have included for a long time now (2+ decades?).
Mine is a Logitech G502 using the default button assignments from their Windows 10 program. Google's AI called them XButton1 and XButton2 messages.
Would be nice if this only needed those directly handled (by you adding 2 more case statements, in your main message loop). That would could work, assuming you're already storing the current folder history somewhere (that you could walk the current folder location, up or down, from the new button press events).