How to Move or Restore Default Location of Personal Folders on Windows 11 or 10?

Changing the default location or redirecting a folder in your home directory will redirect the folder and content to the new location. However, access will still be as if the folder wasn’t redirected or changed. Windows 11/10 allows you to move the default location of personal folders (such as Desktop, Pictures, Downloads, Documents, etc.) to a new destination.

Here, changing or redirecting a home folder is helpful in cases where you’re running out of storage space on a partition and want to use a more extensive section to store new content. If you move or restore the default locations, the risewindows steps will show you how to do that.

How to Move Default Location of Personal Folders on Windows 11 or 10?

As mentioned above, moving the default location of personal folders on Windows 11/10 will transfer its contents also to your new desired location. Even you can still access them as you were doing before. If you are running out of storage or due for some reason, you want to vacate Windows 11 installation drive, perform the following steps:-

Step 1. Firstly, launch the Run command box using Windows + R keys.

Step 2. Now, type the following and hit Enter from the keyboard to view all personal folders items:-

shell:UsersFilesFolder

Step 3. Then, please select a folder by clicking on it to move to a new location. For example, we want to move the Documents folder to a new path.

Step 4. After that, right-click on the selected folder and choose the Properties option.

Step 5. On the Properties window, select the Location tab and then click the Move button.

Step 6. Next, select the destination folder and click the Select Folder button.

Step 7. Then, click Apply in the Properties window.

Step 8. Again, click the Yes button to move all files to a new folder.

Step 9. Finally, click the OK button to exit from the Properties window.

Now your select personal folder contents have been moved to a new location. But, you can still access your documents from the old spot.

That’s it.

How to Restore Default Location of Personal Folders on Windows 11 or 10?

As said above, moving the default location of personal folders on Windows 11/10 will transfer its contents also to your new desired location. However, you can still access them as you were doing before. If you are running out of storage or due to some reason, you had transferred personal folder items to a new location, and now you want to restore them to their original location, you need to perform the following steps:-

Step 1. Firstly, launch the Run command box using Windows + R keys.

Step 2. Now, type the following and hit Enter from the keyboard to view all personal folders items:-

shell:UsersFilesFolder

Step 3. Then, please select a folder by clicking on it to restore it to its original location. For example, we moved the Documents folder earlier to a new path, and now I want to restore it to its original location.

Step 4. After that, right-click on the selected folder and click the Properties option.

Step 5. Then, select the Location tab on the Properties window and click the Restore Default button.

Step 6. Next, choose the Apply button.

Step 7. Now, click the Yes button in the “Create Folder” dialog.

Step 8. Then, in the upcoming window, select Yes.

Step 9. At last, click the OK button to exit from the Properties window.

After completing the above steps, it should restore the folder to its default location.

That’s it for the article.

I hope it will work for your queries.

Good luck & Keep learning with risewindows, guys.!!!