I've accidentally replaced my User folder with my Pictures folder

I have a laptop with an SSD and a HDD, so I decided I would move the Videos and Pictures folders to my HDD to save some room on the SSD. So, C:\Users\reece\Videos changed to D:\Videos as intended.

I tried the same with Pictures and Documents but then changed my mind so tried to move it back into the C:\Users\reece folder, but accidentally replaced the reece folder, so now my C:\Users folder looks like this

Imgur: The magic of the Internet (evang is another profile, Pictures should obviously say reece and be a normal folder).

This is what it looks like inside the C:\Users\Pictures folder
Imgur: The magic of the Internet,
it's exactly as it should be and all of the folders work correctly apart from the fact it says Pictures and not reece.

After doing some research I've seen regedit User Shell Folders might be used to solve it so here a screenshot of that in case it helps Imgur: The magic of the Internet.

I've also ran through option 2 on this link
Restore Default Location of Personal Folders in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials
to restore the Pictures folder to where it should be, but my user folder still remains as "Pictures" instead of just my name.

Is there a way to get it set back to normal? I don't have a system restore point and whenever I try to create a reece folder in C:\Users it just disappears

Hi, you've made a good attempt to sort this out and provided useful info.

Have a look at properties of C:\Users\Pictures


That's the properties of my C:\Users\<my name> folder
- it's set to General.
I guess yours is set to Pictures.

You might try setting yours to that as a start.
(I understand from your description that the content of C:\Users\Pictures is correct but should be C:\Users\reece - please confirm).

Note: screenshots are best posted here using the Image Icon above your post. Thanks.

Some users have made serious mistakes relocating folders.
We strongly urge users to routinely use disk imaging to protect their PC, their data and their time by giving them a reliable way to restore disks, partitions and Windows to a previous good working state.

E.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + external storage for disk images. (System Restore, unfortunately, is often not reliable when you need it most).

Where does
shell:my pictures
in explorer's address bar take you?

And where does
shell:UsersFilesFolder
in explorer's address bar take you?

Some of your icons don't look right.. have you modified them?


yours:

You can check & alter the individual user folder paths in the Registry at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
1 Note that "Personal" means your Documents foder path
2 Check that the path exists before using the Registry to set a path.

Denis

Good the shell variables do the right thing.

Now from a command prompt please check
echo %userprofile%
gives you what you expect. I think it will.

If that's ok, now try
%userprofile%
in file explorer's address bar.

What path do you see in the address bar?

In the registry, see if you can find
C:\users\pictures

Ok, all sounds good. My guess is there's just something extraneous in C:\Users.
You clearly have a folder Reece there, but not displayed. The commands below should demonstrate that.
I'm guessing there's something like a hardlink or junction to Pictures.

Try this: boot to a command prompt (i.e. outside Windows) - e.g. via SHIFT + left click Restart, and follow prompts), then identify the drive letter which is your Windows partition (it won't be C:). Call it x

Try
DIR x:\USERS > x:dir.txt

DIR x:\USERS \ADH > x:\diradh.txt

DIR x:\USERS \AH > x:\dirah.txt

Reboot to Windows and post those.

When we have that I'll ask someone else to take a look.