can't change location of Documents folder

chased down a bunch of posts for the error message but not found an answer yet

I added a new registry entry that was a post suggestion to fix


I'm suspicious it has some thing to do with Documents being in OneDrive?

The folder, mydocs, on my G drive is a copy of the Documents folder from a replaced drive, when I first got the
error I changed the folder name to myDocs thinking maybe the problem was do to having the same folder name
on the target move location.

Hello again bbxrider ,
Have you tried this local tutorial: Move Location of Documents Folder in Windows 10

Hassle to move it permanently but easy just to make a shortcut anywhere. Also if your copying a different Documents folder copy to replace the documents folder and its not working, just open copy the backup one from your drive to your desktop and open the folder in file explorer, open a second file explorer window opening that one in the real documents folder and drag and drop contents from one to the other.? Not sure if this will suffice for you? I understood what you asked.

thanks again for all the replys, apologize for the delay in posting this reply, all was good to set things up as soon as I got one drive out of the way!
but as to why I wanted to use the default ms 'documents', there's a bunch of ms save file dialogs that look like this with documents right there on top, so don't have to scroll down, etc. just trying to save steps, not sure how to get a folder of my creation to appear at the top of the selections for these dialogs

thanks try3, I have done that with some folders, but they don't appear in the 'this pc' list, see pic from my post just above, they do show up in other file save dialogues, as I remember from coding days, I think it depends on which one you invoke when coding the response to a save file, or save as dialogue, in .net programming, its not that big a deal, just lazy here

Did you get your origianl problem fixed???

You can add folders to This PC the same way Docuemts & others appear there, but it requires a registry edit.

A quick workaround is to use the Add network location option under This PC. That creates folder shortcuts that will appear in the Navigaiton Pane.

I just lost half an hours worth of detailed explanation & screen shots --- so frustrated at the moment. Let me know if you want details.

I know that may not be what the OP was originally asking for, but I thought I will chip in with a completely alternative solution. Here's how my explorer opens



Disk C contains Windows (by default), but all my own files (literally, all of them) belong to disk D (there are other drives on my computer, for backup and archiving purposes, but they are powered down when not in use). None of my files are in the "Documents" folder that is created by Windows by default. In my setup I see no reason whatsoever to "move" the Documents folder. I just put my own files in disk D where I can create the folder structure I am comfortable with. The only reason that "Documents" folder is showing up in the navigation pane in my explorer is that some programs insist on creating subfolders there by default when I install them. Most of them allow to specify the default file location, which in my case is nowhere near that Documents folder. But some of them do put something there and some programs I use so rarely that I don't really bother customizing, it's easier to just move individual files to where I want them to go.