The right way to move your Documents folder

By | March 21, 2013
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Pam wants to move her Documents folder to an external hard drive
TC would you please email me the directions for Wendy to move all her documents on Vista from her main hard drive to the secondary hard drive that I am going to give her? THANKS! and thanks again for helping us.

Our answer
(A little background on this question. Pam is a Cloudeight Direct Computer Care customer. One of the things she asked us to do during her session is to find out what was taking up all her hard drive space. It turned out that her Documents folder was taking up approximately 60% of her hard drive. We suggested moving her Documents folder to an external hard drive. At the time of her session, she didn’t have an external drive, so we told her to contact us as soon as she got on and we’d send her instructions on how to move the Documents folder to her External. Pam is using Vista, but then instructions below will work in Windows 7 as well. Windows 8 users can move the Documents below but will need to access their Documents folder using Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E) and browsing to C:\ Users\** your user name **\Documents …or My Documents.)

Hi Pam, here’s how you do it:

1. Click on the Start button.

2. Right-click on Document. For multiple users click your account name in the right-hand menu. Select Properties.

3. In the Properties dialog select the Location tab.

4. Next, click on Move. In the Destination dialog select the new location for your Documents folder. Click on Select Folder to return to the Properties dialog. The new location appears in the text box.

5. Click on Ok. Windows prompts you to confirm. Click Yes and you’re done == but it may take a while for the process to complete – while all files in the Documents folder are moved to the new location.

When you’ve complete this, you won’t know the difference as the Documents folder in the new location will show up and work in Windows as if it had never been moved.

When you save files to it, they will be saved in Documents as they always have been, the only difference is that the Documents folder is not on your C drive – but on your external. Despite the location, the Documents folder will function exactly the same. And the best part of this is, you won’t be taking up more than half your C: drive with one folder (Documents) and if anything ever happens to Windows or your C drive, the Documents folder — and all the files in it will be safe on the external drive.

One thought on “The right way to move your Documents folder

  1. Don

    Cloudeight’s InfoAve has been so helpful; as is this tip for moving My Documents to an external hard drive, but will the same steps work for XP ?? The tip only mentions Vista, Windows 7 & 8.
    Maybe someone can tell me that no harm will be done if I try these same steps with my Windows XP.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *