Windows 10: Problem Moving default Picture Folder and using OneDrive Backup Function

Hi,


my setup:
OneDrive default location on c:\ small ssd

custom picture folder on d:\ a lot of disc space


I have successfully 'moved' i.e. set a new path my default Win 10 Picture folder from the small ssd under c:\ to the larger d:\ drive both separate physical drives.

To achieve this I followed all the steps as described here https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/74942-move-location-pictures-folder-windows-10-a.html except for step 2 because my pictures were already under d:\custom folder. I did not create a folder 'pictures' on d:\ and just pointed to the existing picture folder 'd:\custom folder'. The move brought all the default folders created by OneDrive e.g. \screenshots over to d:\pictures and everything worked fine till this point. D:\custom folder was just renamed to d:\'pictures'. That was only a minor glitch but the rest was fine.

After that the OneDrive folder was still installed under the default location c:\..


Here is were it gets tricky.


Since OneDrive offers a backup I activated this function to backup the picture folder under its new location. It immediately started to move all the files from d:\pictures formerly custom folder name to the standard OneDrive 'picture' location in c:\. That means OneDrive backup deleted all files in d:\pictures except for one folder and moved them to the OneDrive folder in c:\


It is still busy uploading several gigabytes of pictures and luckily the disc will be big enough but they cannot stay there because the c:\ drive is just too small.


I also noticed that OneDrive is now merging its own Picture folder where the OneDrive App uploads smartphone photos with the Windows 10 picture folder so that they basically become only one folder. Before I started the Backup Function they were both separate folders content wise except in name.


How can I move the default Microsoft Windows 10 pictures folder to d:\pictures and leave the rest of OneDrive on c:\?


OneDrive still needs to upload 100Gb of pictures but how can I move them back to d:\ without reuploading 250Gb of data and jamming the internet for another 3-4 days?


This whole experience is just awful. Why can't OneDrive issue a warning that it is deleting all files on d:\ and moving them to c:\ when starting a back-up?


After all, it is doing the exact opposite of a backup, namely destroying files.

:)

 

Access Denied - moving Pictures folder to default or other locations


Hello everyone!
I'll post this here since it's one of the top google results for this particular problem.
Here's how to properly un-merge your pictures and document folders from OneDrive:

1. Right-click the OneDrive icon in the system tray
2. Select "Settings"
3. Select the "Automatic saving" (rough translation from my native language, sorry)
4. Select "This PC only" on both drop-downs, for Documents and Pictures.
5. Click OK

Voila, you have it. Now you can properly move your Documents and Pictures to wherever you like, while keeping the OneDrive functional.
Perhaps we can make an proposal to Microsoft to add a dialog "If you move this folder, you'll no longer automatically save documents/pictures in OneDrive. Are you sure?". I'm positive that a lot of people would be happy.

 

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.

 

Access Denied - moving Pictures folder to default or other locations

Thank you for your advice. I tried everything but only this solved my problem. After unlinking the PC from OneDrive , move OneDrive folder to an external disk or to another folder in your laptop and the problem is solved. After that, if you try to move again OneDrive folder back to C:\users"your name" folder, this time Windows warns you that it will merge user folders with OneDrive folders. So leave OneDrive folder to another place, differend from the above path. Even if you put it into your regenerated Documents folder (after the above steps), will not cause any problem.