The Panels/Remote Page (Preferences Dialog)

When Show inaccessible directories is unchecked, the directories WinSCP considers to be inaccessible by current user are hidden. Use with caution as WinSCP cannot reliably detect this, it only does its best. Particularly it requires that the transfer protocol allows it to list groups the user belongs to.

Uncheck Automatically refresh remote directory after operation to avoid reload time-consuming reload of directories containing huge amount of files after each operation. You can always force refresh manually. Typically you will toggle the option using keyboard shortcut. Directory caching has to be enabled for the panel to reload after background transfer completes.

Use Refresh remote panel every to enable reloading of remote panel in regular intervals, when application is idle.

Read more about Preferences dialog and its other pages.