Moving the 'My Documents' folder (and others) to a different hard disk

Paul Black said:

I like that idea!
Would that also work with another HDD attached?

Library are only links to folders. The folders can be anywhere.

I have moved Documents, Music, Downloads and Pictures to a separate drive, both in my old Windows 7 and on my new Windows 10. Mostly because i have a lot of pictures and the backup images i make of my c drive are much smaller this way.

I am not by any means a pc-tech or very pc-savvy, but this was a fairly simple job to do.
Like Try3 i allways create the folders beforehand and then navigate to them using the "location" tab when right-clicking on the original folder.

When i create the new folders, i create a main folder with the same username as on the c: drive, and then subfolders with identical names like the ones on the c: drive. I then right click on each of them, go to the "Customize" tab and optimize the new folders for their respective use (documents, pictures, music or general items).

I usually do this on empty folders after a fresh install, so i've never had to move any items in the folders.
It may be a good ide to manually move any files or folder you have in these folder to the new location before re-locating the folder locations.

The only problem i've encountered is that i have to manually point Edge (and only Edge) to D:\*Username\Downloads instead of new C:\*Username\Downloads.

Edit: I don't know how this would work out for multiple users as i am the only user on my pc.

Note that you are not obliged to match the original folder path structure, so Documents etc can be made to point to any folder, eg d:\docs or d:\ddd. It is best if that folder exists already, as I (for one) found it confusing trying to relocate when the folders didn't exist - I thought I was telling Windows which folder the 'documents' folder should exist inside, and ended up with the files one level up from where I had intended - in fact one is selecting the folder the 'documents' files will end up in. If one reads the instructions carefully this is clear, but not to someone like me in a rush all those years ago. I think this may be the cause of many of the problems others have experienced.

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ArthurDent said:

So, how do you point to the folders on your data disk if you leave the default folders in place on C: drive?

I think that is one disadvantage of the 'just use other folder' approach - you are left with these hard-wired links in Explorer which point to their original locations, so if you forgetfully use one to drop a file, it can be lost until you think to look there. It may be that the links can be hidden (the way other 'special' folders can), but I haven't tried as I relocate the 'Win10' way.... Well, of course it is, and Mr Brink has been there and done that: Hide or Show User Profile Personal Folders in Windows 10 File Explorer

You could, then, add shortcuts to your new (but not re-located) folders into the Quick Access list.

PS I thought I was adding a separate comment, but something in this forum system joins my two comments in this thread - saves space, at least.