Windows 7 - Moving My Documents
86Moving the My Documents folder
There could be many reasons for moving your My Documents folder. You may want to keep the folder safe by storing it on a seperate drive and free up space on your system drive. Perhaps you want to have it located in a directory with other personal files so that you can back it up easily. Whatever the reasons are, it is still a simple proceedure with Windows 7.
Follow these easy steps to change the location of the My Documents folder and repeat for each User Account.
1) Click on the Start button and then click on Documents
2) In the left panel of the Libraries\Documents window, click on the arrows to expand Libraries>Documents>My Documents (C:\Users\[User Name])
![Navigate to Libraries Documents My Documents (C:\Users\[User Name]](http://z.hubpages.com/u/973385_f520.jpg "Navigate to Libraries Documents My Documents (C:\Users\[User Name]")
3) Right click on My Documents and then click on Properties in the menu that opens.
4) In the My Documents Properties window, click on the Location tab
5) Click on the Move button in the Location tab of the My Documents Properties window
6) Navigate in the Select a Destination window to the location where you would like the My Documents folder located
7) Create a new folder. Name it whatever you would like.
8) Click on the Select Folder button and then click on the OK button in the My Documents Properties window.
9) click on the Yes button in the Move Folder warning window that pops up, since the objective is to move the My Documents folder.
10) It may take some time to move the contents of the My Documents folder, so be patient...
11) When it has finished moving the contenets of the My Documents folder, you can close the Libraries > Documents window
You are done!
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Comments
Good to hear Ali. I'm going to be publishing a few more Windows 7 articles very soon. Stay tuned...
Hi, thanks for the article. I used to have XP that I recently changed to Windows 7 RC Ultimate. Before this change I had moved the XP My Documents from my C:/ drive to a 500GB internal D:/ drive. I also have a 500 GB USB drive F:/ that auto backs up the My Documents from the D:/ drive.
Now that I have Windows 7, (haven't really been using the Win7 My Documents, just put a shortcut on the desktop to the D:/ drive), if I move the Windows 7 My Documents to the D:/ drive will there be a conflict? Can I merge the two different My Documents? Hmmmmm...(scratching head). Thanks for any help you can offer.
Mark
What I've done on my multi-boot setups is simply to name the folder that the My Documents link points to as "My Documents XP Pro" or "My Documents 7RCx64" (Step 7 above - Make sure it updates the name in the Folder window). As for merging them, you could do that, but I'd worry about overwriting older folder content and such. I don't think it would be too hard to manually copy and paste from one folder to the next.
hi this is really cool! thanks for the article.
but do you also know how to move the applcation data file (i'm not sure where to find that) to another driver?
Windows 7 is so cool, i wish i had it
win7 fan: Moving an application data file would involve changing entries in the registry and it's really dependant on what application it is. The only thing that I would personally try is moving the entire Users file, but I have yet to find anything on moving that. I do have a future hub planned on moving the Documents and Settings folder in Windows XP, but that won't directly translate for 7.
Koby: I believe you can still download 7 RC from the Microsoft website. At least the download was still there the last time I checked a few days ago (I needed a key). The page is still up.
Edit: (copied from an e-mail I just recieved)
Meanwhile, RC's downloads are still available. You can get the release candidate download until August 20, 2009. After that, you won't be able to get the download, but if you have the software, you can still install the RC and get a key if you need one. (Keys will be available till March 2010.
Thank You for this!
I have done this (moved My Doc folder to a network drive) many times and it is simple is XP. I couldn't work out how on Win7 so I searched and found your instructions. Thanks for them but there is a problem. In step 5 I have no Locations tab. I think there is something not set up right in the registry but this is a pretty pristine install and I don't know how anything could have got messed up.
Another puzzling thing is that the when I go into the "My Documents" folder it is only shown as "Documents" in the address bar.
I hope this is nothing to do with the really bad idea introduced in Vista of disk "virtualisation". This caused me no end of problems (in Vista) and is the main reason I went back to XP for all our systems.
Thank you A. Phillips.
I know it's hard to see in my screen shots (I need to re-take them or see if I still have them full-sized), but the 'My Documents' folder is actually within the 'Documents' folder under 'Libraries'. Under 'Users', 'My Documents' is just listed under each user name. You should be able to move it from either location, though I haven't actually tried from 'Users', though it's more direct. The 'Documents' library does not have the option to move it.
In XP I move the Favorites folder and my Outlook .PST file into My Docs, then move it to D: and XP tracked the change correctly. This allowed me to image my C: to D; with no data overwrite in restoring, and backing up the D: saved both my data and system images. Although I couldn't go to Vista primarily due to lack of driver availability, it had this 28 step procedure for moving the folder which just added decision to stay with XP. Now that I'm close to moving to W7, your article is confirming the decision. Just out of curiosity, did you ever try moving them in Vista? Even the complicated procedure that I tried left a folder or two on the C: drive, if I remember correctly.
Thanks Bill R. I never tried it in Vista because Vista didn't last on my system due to said driver issues. The big one was that it wouldn't run my printer (HP Deskjet 9800) but it also wouldn't run my DVD burner. After screwing around with it for a week, which was all the more frustrating due to it's lack of pep, I ditched it. Part of the reason was also, at that time, there was talk of 7 beta coming along in a few months. It felt like a waste of my time to even bother with it.
On my 7 installation, tab was under Lybraries/Documents/My Documents, and on that last folder u have to right click and chose location, but thanks anyway for the hint
"2) In the left panel of the Libraries\Documents window, click on the arrows to expand Libraries>Documents>My Documents (C:\Users\[User Name])"
You're wecome anyway. ;)
I used to be able to map 'My Documents' to a server shared area - but this seems not possible in W7. Anyone any ideeas? d.a.clover@open.ac.uk
Thank you for this tip.
Great tutorial - I have a couple of quick questions if you're still monitoring this thread :). I moved the My Documents relatively painlessly for my wife and I, but the interesting thing is that the original folders are still in my Windows partition and show up with a little padlock graphic (I assume they're locked somehow). Not only that, the originals are all of about 3 GB combined, but the new ones are significantly less. Any guesses as to what is going on? Finally, I was going to try to move all of the "Public" files the same way but there doesn't appear to be the same "move" functionality. Can I get away with a good ole cut and paste for the public folders?
Thanks in advance,
Justin
Despite all the improvements MS would have you believe have been made for Windows 7, basic things like moving potentially large folders like the Public documents folders is still far from straightforward.
In XP and Vista it could sometimes be achieved by making changes to the Registry (sometimes even that didn't work). I suspect it's the same in Windows 7, but too many basics continue to be neglected in Windows.
Hi. Thank you for the helpful info. My question is, can you do the same thing for Program Files. I read somewhere that it's a good idea to keep the Windows OS files in a partition all to themselves; then, create a separate partition for all your other programs. But, how do make this other partition the default so that program install files go there by default, instead of automatically going to C (where the Windows files are)?
Thanks again.
The only really acceptable way to install programs on a non-system partition is when you install the program, chose your install directory using the program's installer. I don't see any benefit to installing on a seperate partition on the asme disk. In fact, that may actually be detrimental. However, installing on a seperate physical drive has advantages, but not if you already have your personal files and page file there. If you have three drives, then you could have your OS on one, your program files on a second, and your page file and personal files on a third. It really depends on the drives and what you need. With three drives, if they're the same, you'd really be much better off with a RAID setup than spreading out like that. Personally, I keep my OS and programs on the same drive and put my page file on a small partition at the beginning of a second drive, which also has my personal files.
Wow, a change to Windows that doesn't require hacking around in the registry. Not even a restart. Windows 7 really is good isn't it :)
can you move the mydoc's for users on xp too? this is news to me. coming from the unix world I've asked many windows techs to put mydocs home dir on another disk but nobody said it was possible.
It's absolutely possible in XP. You can even move the entire Documents and Settings folder. If you only need to move the My Docs folder, check out my other HubPage.
Ali says:
6 months ago
Thank you ... it worked :)