How to Move Desktop Folder in Windows 10MustBeGeek

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In Windows OS environment, Desktop is your home interface to keep shortcuts and files that you need to quickly access. By default, Desktop is created in OS drive (C:\) and is unique for every user account in the computer. In some case you would want to move the Desktop out of your user account folder, or even to another drive. It’s something that is very possible to do. In this article, we’re going to show you How to Move Desktop Folder in Windows 10 to another drive.

How to Move Desktop Folder in Windows 10

In Windows 10 and other latest Windows version, you can move the Desktop folder by modifying its properties. This can be done by following the order as explained below:

Step 1 – Preparing the new Desktop location

In this example, we want to move the desktop folder it to drive D. We create a new blank folder called “My Desktop” in drive D and this is where we will move the current Desktop contents later. It is important to note that the new folder location must be exist before you move the contents.

Step 2 – Modifying the Desktop folder properties

Open “This PC” and right click on the Desktop shortcut, select Properties.

Open the Location tab.

Modify the value in the field with your desired path, in this example we’re using “D:\My Desktop” folder that has been created in step 1.

The system will ask if we want to move the contents from previous Desktop path to the new location. Click Yes to automatically move all the files & folders from Desktop to the new location.

Now the “My Desktop” folder icon and name in our drive D has been changed as shown in figure below. If we open it, it will show the same Desktop contents that we have.

With this way you have successfully moved the Desktop folder.

Alternative Way – Using Registry Editor

Did you know that you can also change the registry to move your Desktop folder location? However this way requires you to manually move all files & folders from your current Desktop to the new location.

Step 1 – Moving all files & folder from Desktop to the new location

Move all files & folder from your Desktop to the new location, for example in our case is to “D:\My Folder”. You can cut then paste all items on the new location. Notice that we left the Recycle Bin shortcut in the desktop, just leave that for now.

Step 2 – Modifying the registry

TIP: It is best to back up the registry before making any changes on it.

Press Win+R, type regedit.exe and press Enter.

In the registry editor window, browse to the below location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Double click the Desktop key in the right pane. Modify the value data using the new Desktop folder location. Below figure is the example after modification.

Step 3 – Logoff & Logon

At this last step you must re-logon to the computer for the changes to takes effect. After you do so, you will see that your contents are now back in the Desktop and it has been pointing to the new location!