Windows 10: I messed up moving Documents folder location to D:\

I messed up trying to move my Documents folder location to my D:\ data partition.

I was following this tutorial, but not carefully enough: Documents Folder - Move Location in Windows 10

I didn't create a new Documents folder on the D:\ partition first, as the tutorial says to do. I clicked on "Move..." and selected the D:\ partition itself for the new location.

Now, in the menu on the left in File Explorer:

* Under Quick Access, it no longer shows a Documents folder, instead it says D:\ and has a document icon.

* Under my User Profile, it no longer shows a Documents folder, instead it has the name of my D:\ partition and the hard drive icon.

* If I click on my D:\ drive label under This PC, it shows the empty My Bluetooth folder that should be in the Documents folder.

I then tried making a Documents folder on the D:\ drive and moving it again, but I get the error: The folder can't be moved here. Can't redirect a parent into a child. The specified path is invalid."

How do I undo this and try again? I'm going to ask before I make it worse. I didn't have any documents in the folder yet.

I hope this is clear. Thank you for your time.

:)

 

Moving Folder Locations from SSD onto D Drive


So i moved my documents, pictures, videos, and music folders from my ssd to my D drive.

This is the process i followed: right click folder, click properties, click the location tab, click move, select the D drive, click ok.

What I failed to do, was create a NEW folder within the D drive (labelled either documents, pictures, videos, etc) to move the folder too. I misread the instructions, and just assumed I was putting the folder INTO the D drive, and that the folder itself would be moved to the D drive, and that I didn't need to create a folder with the same name as the folder I was moving. I hope that makes sense!

Anyway, now I have 4 separate D drives listed in my PC menu. Pretty sure underneath it all this is messing stuff up. Any help would be appreciated. Pretty concerned at this point that this is a permanent error.

 

Default Locations Two folders messed up


Here is how I did what the OP wants:

My C drive is on an ssd. Because I needed more space than the ssd offered, I wanted my four most important folders (Documents, Pictures, Music and Video) to be on the much bigger internal hard drive (Drive D). This involved manually making four (in my case) new (target) folders with the same names on that internal hard drive (D). (To do that, I opened Drive D and did Right Click > New.) Then, after a few more steps, Windows was configured to thereafter Redirect (the formal word/command) all save, open etc commands to those target folders rather than the default ones on the C drive. The step-by-step instructions are on the following Web site:

• How to Move Your Documents Folder Location in Windows 10
• How to Move Your Pictures Folder Location in Windows 10

After the actions in the Web site have been followed, the following windows will appear when you press This PC or File Explorer:

Attachment 150088This shows View > Tiles. (You might need to scroll at the top of the window to select Tiles - Tiles is just my favourite).

But the Documents etc, are empty. That's OK. Redirection only operates on newly created files. Note the Web site gives instructions about about Moving (not copying) all your existing files to the new folders.

To test, create a dummy file and save it to Documents (navigate to Documents and note in passing that it is now filled with your existing files). Then press This PC or File Explorer (to open the same window in the attachments to this message). Confirm again that all your existing files and the dummy file are in Documents. As before, you see only one set of Documents etc. folders but they are actually on Drive D. Repeat for as many folders as you want. I redirected four in all. Simple.

All this is not as complex as looking at the instructions implies.

 

Suddenly, Documents folder has moved to Downloads

We appreciate the details you've provided. To address your issue, we suggest that you follow these steps on how to move your Documents Folder Location in Windows 10:

• You need to create a new folder named Documents at the location you want to move your personal Documents folder.
• Press Win + E to open File Explorer, right-click
  Documents, and select Properties.
• Select the Location tab and click the Move button.
• Browse and select the new Documents folder at the location you want to move the folder Documents. Click the
  Select Folder.
  
• Click OK to apply.
• Click Yes to move all the files from the old location to the new location.
• Your personal Documents folder and all of its contents will now be moved to the new location.

Let us know if you need further assistance.