How to Change Personal Folders' Location by Using the Registry?

The registry is very useful and powerful and is the core of windows. By modifying the registry, we can restrict and optimize the system, and make some personalized customizations to make the system more convenient. For example, we can change personal folders' location by using the registry, but also My Documents, various programs, picture collections, music, and other default folders to other disks to save space on the system disk. We can also change the desktop, favorites, and other useful documents to a non-system disk.

Change the location of your desktop/documents folder

Step 1: Use the keyboard shortcut WIN+R to open the Run window, type Regedit and click ok to open.

Step 2: Locate to the following position.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Step 3: Find and double click on the right-hand side to open the Desktop option and change the value data to the location of the folder where you want to save the folder. (For example, if you want to place the Desktop folder in the D drive - Desktop folder, you can enter D:\Desktop.) Click OK to save the change.

Step 4: If you cannot find the folder in the list whose position you want to change. Right-click on space (in the right pane) and select New->Expandable String Value.

Step 5: Type the name of the folder that you want to change its default location. Take "Documents" as an example, if you want to change the location of the "Documents" folder, you can type Personal. And then double-click to open.

Step 6: In the Value data box, enter the new location to the selected folder (e.g. "G:\Backup\Documents") and click OK to save the change.

Step 7: Use the shortcut keys Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager, find Windows Explorer, and click Restart to finish changing the location of your folder on the desktop.

Change the location of your favorites

Step 1: Repeat steps 1 and step 2 above.

Step 2: Find favorites in the registry, double click and open it, then click on value data to change it, for example, if you want to put favorites in E drive, you can change it to E:\Favorites. Click OK to save the change.

Step 3: After restarting the computer, the registry changes will take effect. You can also repeat step 7 above.

Step 4: If you change your mind and want to restore the default location, you can enter %USERPROFILE%\Favorites in the value data. Then restart windows explorer in task manager to restore it. Do the same if you want to restore the default locations for Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, and Videos.

Note: The %USERPROFILE% variable represents the location to the user profile folder.

If you want to change the location of your personal folders located on your system drive C, such as My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos, you can do so by using the above method.