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

 

[Brink]

Great news.

 

[sallbee]

Thanks for posting...I have an SSD for my system drive and this worked great to move my main user accounts to a HDD.

I didn't have any luck moving the "Public" or "Guest" folders over, though. I could usually 'see' the location tab, but there was no option to move them, even when logged in as a Sys Admin. Is this not allowed? Call me chicken, but I'd rather not get into registry if I don't have to!

Not sure if this is relevant, but I deleted the user account that I used to initially set up Win7 RTM, and created a new sys admin account (set up as a sys admin, not a 'normal' user).

Thanks!

Update: I'm half-way there. I found this thread on this forum about enabling the 'real' Adminstrator account.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/507-built-administrator-account-enable-disable.html

That let me move *most* of the "Public" folders (except for Public Recorded TV and Public Desktop). This could be a problem if Media Center starts recording to my SSD!

Still couldn't move the Guest folders.

 

[BFG]

Just thought I'd add/share that you can also move the Roaming, Local, and LocalLow folders as well

Start > Run appdata will show you the three folders
Right click select properties
and you'll see there's a location tab just like the other folders mentioned in this guide

 

[sallbee]

great tip, thanks! Any ideas on those public folders that I couldn't move (previous post)?

 

[Brink]

Hello Sallbee, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I would strongly advise against moving the Public folders. These are shared between all user accounts on the computer. If you move the public folders location, there's a good chance that these will no longer work and be able to be shared by all of the user accounts anymore.

 

[Quantico]

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

Excellent tutorial and forum compliments .
I used something similar on Vista 64x and now I am going to do it on Seven using your tutorials.

I read around that there is the possibility of moving the entire Users Folder through different approaches.

1.Editing the registry

How to Change User Profile Default Location in Windows 7 | Windows 7 hacker

2. use of wklink, with procedures like this (in the command prompt after booting from installation DVD)

1. MKDIR D:\Users
2. ROBOCOPY X:\Users D:\Users /MIR /E /XJ
3. RMDIR /S /Q C:\Users
4. MKLINK /J C:\Users D:\Users


An alternative approach similar to yours is to create additional folders locations (docs, music, etc that you have in another drive) to the 'Libraries' and make them the default location.

http://www.sevenforums.com/196037-post16.html



What do you think about these approaches?

I have found in some blogs negative comments about the strategy of changing the location of each data folder (I am definitively using it ) due to the fact that you can only change specific folders such as Documents, Pictures, etc. It doesn't solve the problem of moving hidden application data or other folders to the new location.

Thanks again

 

[Brink]

Hello Quantico, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I have not tried this particular method, but personally I think changing the location of the entire user folder itself is asking for problems. It seems like to many things could be broken without it being in the default location, or if one mistake was made.

I'll have to do some testing on it to see though.

 

[Quantico]

...but personally I think changing the location of the entire user folder itself is asking for problems...

I am completely agree with you .

 

[Sinclair]

Brink,

Let us assume I want to move the “My Documents” folder from “C” to “D”. Then what will the scenario be folder-wise the next time I need, for whatever reason, to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch?

 

[Brink]

Brink,

Let us assume I want to move the “My Documents” folder from “C” to “D”. Then what will the scenario be folder-wise the next time I need, for whatever reason, to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch?

Hello Sinclair, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Since it is from scratch, I would backup the contents of your moved "My Documents" folder. After you reinstall Windows 7, repeat the tutorial to move the folder again, then just copy the contents back into it.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Sinclair]

Thank you Brink

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Sinclair.

 

[gellio]

can't move the local directory

Just thought I'd add/share that you can also move the Roaming, Local, and LocalLow folders as well

Start > Run appdata will show you the three folders
Right click select properties
and you'll see there's a location tab just like the other folders mentioned in this guide

This was a good tip and it worked for Roaming and LocalLow. However, for Local it won't let me complete the move operation as there are some files that are in use when I'm logged in as that user. I tried logging in as the Administrator user (which I enabled to move my public stuff) and it doesn't give me the location option in the Local folder properties. I also just tried moving everything over, which completed successfully but when I logged back in as the core user the location was still set to the C: drive (I'm trying to move my profiles onto my D: mirror drive) and I still couldn't complete the move operation for the same reason (some of the files were locked). Has anyone managed to move the Local folder and if so, how. I have everything else done.

Thanks

 

[Barman58]

Have not used this in your situation but you could have a look at Movefiles from Sysinternals which allows you to move system files by performing the moves during a re-boot

PendMoves and MoveFile

Use MoveFile and PendMoves to Move a File That is Always in Use

 

[Megalodon]

Still having trouble...

I signed up here basically to post two things:

First, thank you for this info. It's been extremely helpful.

Second, as someone noted, I was able to change the location of LocalLow and Roaming, but Local still evades me. It seems that no matter what I try (PendMove and such didn't work for me) I can't find a way to move the Local folder location. It keeps running into things which are in use by the user data itself (i.e. UsrClass.dat)

If anyone has found a workaround, to allow moving the Local folder location (and as it has a "Location" tab, I'm assuming there mus be a way), I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[Barman58]

Strange that movefiles didn't work as I have seen that used to move parts of the actual system structure (WinSXS) in the past.

As it operates totally outside of windows before the system or users are loaded this should not apply.

The only other way I can think of is by the use of a second operating system in dual boot or a live Linux distro that can see and move the data. once the data is moved the use of the hard link should work without issue.

 

[gellio]

If I understand correctly the problem would be that this movefiles command doesn't solve the problem. Not because it doesn't allow you to move the directory, it probably does, but because it doesn't change the operating system level 'location' of the directory. So when you log back in, its just recreated on the C drive and repopulated with the files that you just moved.

I'm assuming this because I've been able to happily move the directory without the movefiles command. I just logged in as the default Administrator user and then moved the Local folder for my normal user. The folder moved just fine but when I logged back in to my normal user the Local directory location was still C:\users\USERID\Appdata\Local instead of in the same path on the D drive, which is where I moved the folder to and want it to be. Trying to move the directory again with the location tab resulted in exactly the same error that I had prior to this whole activity.

Hope that helps

 

[Barman58]

Ok I think I see the potential issue

What needs to be done is, at the time that the data is moved to the alternate location you need to create a hard link, (Junction Point), named Local in the user folder that points to the new location.

Command line tool Mklink

When you now log in to the user account the system will see the junction point as the original folder, (with it's complete contents), and therefore not attempt to re-create the folder and contents.

 

[Megalodon]

Good news! I found the solution to moving the Local folder. Thank you Gellio for posting what you did. What you said made me think: When using the location tab, it's probably updating some registry entries. Copying the files is just part of the moving. So I put this theory to the test. The following process will allow you to move your Local folder as well:

1. Log into the default administrator account. (instructions can be found here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/507-built-administrator-account-enable-disable.html)
2. Copy the Local folder to the location you desire. Be sure to take note of the exact path.
3. Log off the default administrator.
4. Log in to your main account, and type "regedit" into the Start Search field, and open it.
5. Browse to the following: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ User Shell Folders
6. You'll see a list, and any of the folders you have already moved will show the new absolute path to their new locations.
7. Find Cache, History, and Local AppData and replace the "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\" with the absolute path that leads to the new local folder (which may or may not include \AppData\, based on how you structured your personal folders).
8. Log off the account, and log back in again. Browse to your new location for the Local folder, right-click and select "Properties," close it, and open it again. You will now see the "Location" tab, with the new path in the location field, and the move has been successful.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you're on Windows Home Premium like me, you'll have to enable the Default Administrator account via the Elevated Command Line option.

 

[gellio]

Yup, this worked just fine. However, I strongly recommend doing it before installing anything as some installations have the original path hard coded. Do it on a dummy user, then create a new user and then delete the dummy one.