Windows 10: desktop, pictures, documents folder location - onedrive

Hi all,Recently I have played with onedrive big mistake in my windows 11 laptop and accidently caused a lot of issues. After 3 hours, I have fixed most but one problem.My issue now is, the pictures folder, documents and desktop folder are all now saved into the c:/users/XXX/onedrive . I have the location set in my D:/ before. How do I change it back? When I right click >properties on the folders, i can't see the "location" tab anymore.I have tried to unlink my account and then upon relinking- changed the location to D: . Now there is a d:\onedrive, however, my desktop files are still link

:)

 

Location on Documents folder and Pictures folder has been changed to OneDrive

Instead of unlinking and uninstalling OneDrive, you probably should just change its auto save behavior.

Use the OneDrive app settings to change where your files are saved by default.

In the Notifications area at the bottom of your Windows screen, right-click the OneDrive icon and click Settings. You might have to click Show hidden icons to find OneDrive.

In the Settings box, on the Auto save tab, under Documents and Pictures, click the list at Documents or Pictures and pick the default save location you want.

This PC only - When you create a file, the Documents or Pictures folder under This PC is the first-choice location offered to save it. The file is not saved to OneDrive unless you do so separately, and it is available only on the PC you used to save it.

OneDrive - When you create a file, the first location offered is within the Documents or Pictures folder under OneDrive. Because these folders sync to your PC, files you save there are available on your PC, even when it's not connected to the Internet. And
you can use any device with an Internet connection to access your files.

Note: No matter which default setting you choose, you still can select the save location you want each time you save a file. When you click Save for new files or Save As for existing files, click OneDrive or This PC and then pick a folder to save your file
to.

Find and move your files

The Documents and Pictures folders exist in both This PC and OneDrive, which might make them easy to mix up. If you've mistakenly saved a file - for example, you save a file to the Documents folder in your PC instead of the Documents folder in OneDrive, use
File Explorer or the OneDrive app to drag the files where you want them.

From the Start menu, click the OneDrive tile to open the OneDrive app built into File Explorer.

In the file list on the right, browse to find the file you want to move, and drag it to the correct folder in the folder list on the left.

 

OneDrive moved my Desktop into a OneDrive folder and removed Google Drive

To revert the shell folder locations to default, open OneDrive and do the following:

Important: Before proceeding, copy the files in those special folders to another folder or external drive. Please don’t copy them anywhere under Desktop/Documents/Pictures. This is because disabling OneDrive backup for a folder would erase the local copies of the files. Copying them to a different location beforehand will ensure that you don’t need to download them again from the OneDrive cloud.

1. Right-click the OneDrive icon in the Notification area and click Settings.
   
2. Select the Backup tab, and click Manage Backup
   
3. In the Manage folder backup dialog, click on the Stop backup link under the special folder (Desktop, Documents, or Pictures)
   
4. Click Stop backup in the confirmation dialog that appears.
   
5. Repeat the step for each shell folder you want to revert to the original location.
   

See also:

• Error “The folder can’t be moved here” Moving Documents/Pictures, Caused by OneDrive
  
• Libraries are placed in onedrive folder instead of local folder - Microsoft Community
  

 

Problem with location of Pictures library after making pictures available on OneDrive

Thanks Rhina

I did what you suggested but it ended up making OneDrive the Pictures library. This may have something to do with the way i originally moved the Pictures folders to OneDrive. I probably should explain:

Because there already was a (fairly empty) Pictures folder under OneDrive (automatically set up I think when transferring a few Ipad photos to PC via OneDrive) I had moved the top level Pictures folders into D/users/myname/OneDrive rather than moving
the Pictures folder itself. This was probably a bit stupid but I subsequently moved the top level Pictures folders into that pre-existing Pictures folder on OneDrive and that's how we got to where we are today.

To continue after that diversion. Following the restore you suggested, the pictures folder under Libraries was still wrong but it looked a lot better ie it was no longer offering me a choice of locations for Pictures folders and, instead was just showing
me all the top level folders for what it (wrongly) thought was the Pictures folder. But it was still not appearing directly under This PC.

My next step was to go into Properties option for Libraries/Pictures. Here I simply added the correct location D/users/myname/OneDrive/pictures and deleted the location D/users/myname/OneDrive which at that time was the current location.

So, on the Positive side:

• Libraries/Pictures now shows what I would expect ie my top level Pictures folders

But, on the negative side:

• Pictures still does not appear under This PC, unlike Documents, Videos, Music etc
• in the Photos app, if I go to Folders option, it shows the folder as OneDrive, not OneDrive/Pictures even though, if i go into "choose where to look" it is correctly showing OneDrive/Pictures as the location. Obviously i can still get to the photos I need
  but it's an extra unnecessary step
  

That's where i am currently.