User Folders - Change Default Location

How to Change the Default Location of User Folders in Windows 7 and Windows 8​

   Information

This will show you how to change (move) the default location of your account's C:\Users\(user-name) folders to another location of your choice instead in Windows 7 and Windows 8, and still have access to the user folder from the Start Menu (Windows 7 only) location.

   Tip

If you are just wanting to save HDD space, then you might consider this below to be able to access the files from your libraries with the files actually located where you like instead. This way you will not have to worry about any potential issues that come with moving user folder locations. For example, whatever partition you move your user folders to will now be included in a system image in Windows 7 and Windows 8.

• Create a new folder at any location you want.
• Move any files you want into the new folder.
• Include the new folder into a library (Windows 7 or Windows 8) of your choice.
• If you like, you can also set the new folder to be the default save to location (Windows 7 or Windows 8) for the library as well.

   Warning

If you change the default location of your Favorites folder in Windows 8 or 8.1, your Favorites in Internet Explorer will no longer be available until you move your Favorites back to the default "C:\Users\(user-name)" location.

EXAMPLE: User Folders
NOTE: This is at the default C:\Users\(user-name) location.

OPTION ONE

To Change Main User Profile Folder Location

1. For how, see:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/87555-user-profile-change-default-location.html

OR

How to Relocate User Profiles to another Partition or Disk in Windows 8

OPTION TWO

To Change User Folders Location from within User Profile Folder

1. If you a part of a homegroup, then you will need to change the homegroup settings to no longer share the user folder (ex: My Music) that you want to move first by unchecking the folder and clicking on Save Changes. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: This is so the user folder (ex: My Music) will not be shared on the homegroup anymore.

2. In Windows Explorer, navigate to where (ex: D: drive) you want to move the default user folder (ex: My Music) location to.

3. Create a New Folder by right clicking or press and hold on a empty space in the main window there, and click/tap on New and Folder. Name the new folder without spaces (ex: "Music" for My Music) for the user folder that you want to move there. (See screenshots below)
NOTE: The name that you type in for the new folder will be what you see as the user folder name in the Start Menu (shell:UsersFilesFolder) location when finished with all of these steps. It would be best to use the same name as the user folder to avoid confusion.




4. Close this window. (See screenshots above)

5. Press the Windows+R keys to open the Run dialog, type shell:UsersFilesFolder, and press enter.
NOTE: This will open your C:\Users\(user-name) folder.

6. Right click or press and hold on a user folder (ex: My Music, My Documents, My Pictures, etc.....) that you want to move the default location for, and click/tap on Properties. (See screenshot below)

7. Click/tap on the Location tab, and Move button. (See screenshot below)

8. Navigate to the same location as in step 2 and 3 above, then select the renamed new folder (ex: Music), and click/tap on the Select Folder button. (See screenshot below)

9. Click/tap on OK. (See screenshot below)

10. Click/tap on Yes. (See screenshot below)

11. After a few seconds when the location has been changed, the Properties window (screenshot under step 9) will then close.

12. Check back at the C:\Users\(user-name) location to make sure that the old user folder (ex: My Music) that you moved is no longer there. If it is, then make sure that the contents of the folder were moved to the new location, and delete it. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If you are unable to delete the folder, then restart the computer and try again.

13. You will notice that the folder at the shell:UsersFilesFolder location and the new location (ex: D drive) you moved the user folder to, now has the default user folder (ex: My Music) icon. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: The Start Menu in Windows 7 now opens the user folder from the new location (ex: D: drive) that you moved the user folder to.

14. If you a part of a homegroup, then you can now change the homegroup settings back to share the user folder (ex: My Music) again if you like by checking the folder, and click/tap on Save Changes. (see screenshot below)

   Tip

If you wanted to restore the default location of the user folder, then see:

How to Restore the Default Location of User Folders in Windows 7 and Windows 8

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Customize Default User Profile in Audit Mode
• How to Restore the Default Location of User Folders in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Change the Default "Screenshots" Folder Location in Windows 8
• How to Change the Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Pin Your User Files Folder to the Windows 7 Taskbar
• How to Create Your Own Special User Folder
• How to Restore Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Add or Remove your User Folder from the Windows 7 Navigation Pane
• How to Allow or Prevent Users to Move their User Folders to a New Location
• How to Change the Default Location of a User Profile in Windows 7 and Vista
• How to Change the Name of "My Documents" without Renaming the Folder
• User Folders - Moving User Folders by Modular Script
• How to Free Up and Recover Hard Drive Space in Windows 7
• How to Change the User Folder Name of a User Profile in Windows 7

 

[Lee]

Brink,

Thanks, after finishing reading, I printed it to PDF. That way I can get right the first time. Good info.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Lee.

 

[SHOGuide]

You presented the exact question I was seeking, but your answer illustrates moving a sub-folder of the default user. I installed Windows 7 and provided a username, so the default folder is c:\users\user1. There is a lock icon on this folder. I want to assign this machine to jjones and want the default directory to be c:\users\jjones with all the sub-folders of music, video, documents... I changed the login to jjones(admin), thinking it would change the folders. Maybe I missed a step... Thanks!

 

[Brink]

Hello SHOGuide, and welcome to Seven Forums.

The only way you can change the C:\Users\(user name) folder is to create a new administrator account with a different name than the user1 and jjones that you assigned to the other account. Afterwards, copy the contents of your C:\users\user1 folders into the corresponding new account's C:\Users\(user name) folders. When everything checks out ok, you can then delete the old user account from within the new one.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[SHOGuide]

Thank you! This is what I was looking for. I was hopeful that if I just changed the only Admin login from user1 to jjones that Windows would simply prompt me to rename everything that was associated with user1. After thinking about it, that would not be easy for the system to do. I'm still trying to get used to the Libraries folder structure. It has initially been confusing.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome SHOGuide.

If it helps any, you can think of the Libraries as a collections of shortcuts to make accessing and changing files from different locations easier to do in one location (library) instead.

 

[churin]

What is UsersFilesFolder in shell:UsersFilesFolder in Setp 3.? I thought it is Favorites when I wanted to relocate this folder but it does not seems to be so.

 

[Barman58]

What is UsersFilesFolder in shell:UsersFilesFolder in Setp 3.? I thought it is Favorites when I wanted to relocate this folder but it does not seems to be so.

The shell:UsersFilesFolder is the system identifier for the user folder which appers as the user name in the start menu or explorer.

It is the pointer to the folder c:\users\{user} in the default setup but is not as far as I am aware relocatable using the location function

 

[churin]

What is UsersFilesFolder in shell:UsersFilesFolder in Setp 3.? I thought it is Favorites when I wanted to relocate this folder but it does not seems to be so.

The shell:UsersFilesFolder is the system identifier for the user folder which appers as the user name in the start menu or explorer.

My question is what the UsersFilesFolder is. Whereas your answer is shell:UsersFilesFolder is ........ Please provide what goes in place of UsersFilesFolder by a spcific example.

 

[Brink]

Hello Churin,

The shell command shell:UsersFilesFolder is just another way to open the C:\Users\(user-name) folder. That's all.

If you wanted to relocate the C:\Users\(user-name)\Favorites folder, then you would select the Favorites folder when you get to step 5.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[churin]

Hi, Brink;

As you know my recent problem of relocating Favorites folder has been resolved but I am still asking question in that thread about Barman58's recommended practice. I thought reviewing this Tutorial might help understand what he is saying.

Getting back to the topic of this thread, I read the entire tutorial before posting my question.

For example, if shell:Favorites is executed a list of its contents is displayed. Then what to do with it? Why is this step neccessary to do the step 5?

 

[Brink]

Churin,

I think you may have gotten twisted up a bit with this.

In step 4, you would only want to type exacly shell:UsersFilesFolder in the Start Menu and press enter to open the C:\Users\(user name) folder. Not shell:Favorites.

Then in step 5, you would right click on the Favorites folder to finish the rest of the tutorial to relocate it.

 

[crasher23]

Move user folder to another partition

Hi, First thanks for keep running this useful forum, My English is not very good, so please be bear with me.

My problem is: I have already moved all the sub-folders to another partition (from "C:\users\me\xxx-xxx-xxx" to "D:\me\xxx-xxx-xxx") but when I click on the start menu "me" it sends me to "C:\Users\me" and I have all my data in "D:\me".
So my question is how can I do the same thing I did with the sub-folders with the main folder, I mean change its location to my other partition??

by the way, when I type shell:UsersFilesFolder inthe start menu and it opens the "C:\Users\me" folder when I do right click on it there is not properties menu and when I click Customize Folder a message that says "the properties for this item are not available".

Thanks In Advance.

 

[Antman]

Hi, First thanks for keep running this useful forum, My English is not very good, so please be bear with me.
...Thanks In Advance.

Read the very first message in this thread. It is a how to guide.

 

[crasher23]

Hi, First thanks for keep running this useful forum, My English is not very good, so please be bear with me.
...Thanks In Advance.

Read the very first message in this thread. It is a how to guide.

I see that now thanks for pointing it out, however if you check the title of the tutorial you can realize that it is not accurate because you are not changing the default location of the user folders but the sub-folders, and that is the reason of my question. So I think it would be appropriate to answer it here instead of somewhere else IMAO. But it is alright if you can't do it here.
Thanks anyway.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location-2.html#post264225

 

[Brink]

Hello Crasher,

The title is "User Folders" for changing the user folders, and not "User Folder" for changing the user folder itself.

I have added more to the tutorial under step 5 to help show you how to do this better.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[churin]

Churin,

I think you may have gotten twisted up a bit with this.

In step 4, you would only want to type exacly shell:UsersFilesFolder in the Start Menu and press enter to open the C:\Users\(user name) folder. Not shell:Favorites.

Then in step 5, you would right click on the Favorites folder to finish the rest of the tutorial to relocate it.

My apology: It must be that I did not type shell:UsersFilesFolder correctly since I got "No items match search".

 

[Brink]

Churin,

I think you may have gotten twisted up a bit with this.

In step 4, you would only want to type exacly shell:UsersFilesFolder in the Start Menu and press enter to open the C:\Users\(user name) folder. Not shell:Favorites.

Then in step 5, you would right click on the Favorites folder to finish the rest of the tutorial to relocate it.

My apology: It must be that I did not type shell:UsersFilesFolder correctly since I got "No items match search".

No problem Churin. Did you get it sorted out?

 

[churin]

Churin,

I think you may have gotten twisted up a bit with this.

In step 4, you would only want to type exacly shell:UsersFilesFolder in the Start Menu and press enter to open the C:\Users\(user name) folder. Not shell:Favorites.

Then in step 5, you would right click on the Favorites folder to finish the rest of the tutorial to relocate it.

My apology: It must be that I did not type shell:UsersFilesFolder correctly since I got "No items match search".

No problem Churin. Did you get it sorted out?

Yes. I could resume the procedure correctly at the step 5 even though I goofed at the step 4. That's why I wondered what the step 4 was for, which prompted me to post the question.
Thanks for your help.