Windows 10 lets you easily change the default Save location for Documents, Music, Picture, and Video User Profile folders. You can now easily save your personal files like Documents, Music, Picture, and Videos to another drive or partition or even an external drive by default.
We have already seen how to move apps to another location and how to install Windows 10 Apps to another Partition. The procedure for changing the default save location for personal files in Windows 10 is similar.
Change default location of User folders
You can change the default location of user folders like the Documents, Music, Picture, and Videos folders via their respective Folder Properties, Settings app, or by editing the Registry. Let us take a look at the procedure involved. While we have taken the Documents folder as an example, the procedure is the same for other User Profile folders as well.
1] Change default location of Documents folder using Properties
The procedure is as follows:
- Open File Explorer
- Navigate to the Documents folder located in C:\Users\<username>
- Right-click on the folder and select Properties.
- Open Location tab and enter the desired new path.
- Click Move.
- It will open the Explorer dialog box.
- Navigate to and select the desired new location; or else manually enter the path.
- Click Apply/OK.
The folder and its contents will get moved.
2] Change where new content is saved via Settings
Windows 10 makes things easier as you can do so via the Settings app.
Open Start Menu > Settings > System settings.
Next, click on Storage in the left pane.
Scroll down a bit and find Change where new content is saved.
Click on it to open the following panel.
Here you will see New documents will save to setting – and similar settings for Music, Pictures & Videos.
Select the location from the drop-down menu.
Thus you can set different Save locations for different types of files.
3] Change default Save location for User Profile folders via Registry
Press Win+R keys to open the Run box. Now type regedit and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor. Next, navigate to the following path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
On the right-hand side, you will a key called Personal. If you want to change the path of the Documents folder, you need to work on Personal. If you want to change the path of the Video folder, you need to use the Video. Similarly, there are Pictures for Pictures folder, Music for Music folder.
So double-click on the concerned key, and enter the new value according to your folder.
The default paths are:
- Documents: %USERPROFILE%\Documents
- Music: %USERPROFILE%\Music
- Pictures: %USERPROFILE%\Pictures
- Video: %USERPROFILE%\Videos
Having done this, exit the Registry Editor, restart your computer, and check.
The folder should have moved to the new location.
If you are suffering from the low space issues after upgrading, you can use this technique to move Documents and other personal folders from the default system drive to another drive.
