Move My OneDrive Folder
When you set up OneDrive, it places the local machine copy of your files in a subfolder of your user folder. For example, on my machine, that would be:
C:\Users\lnote\OneDrive
Personally, I don’t like that. I prefer to have cloud storage folders like OneDrive at the top, or “root”, of my C: drive. Perhaps more practically, however, many people like to place these folders on another drive completely.
Let’s move the OneDrive folder.
This really should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: back up first.
We’ll be making changes to files, folders, and system application settings. In the worst case, a misstep here could cause your entire OneDrive folder to be emptied and its contents deleted. It’s not likely, but it is something that would be painful should it happen.
A full system image backup is always best. However, a full backup of the contents of your OneDrive folder is a bare minimum. Don’t rely on OneDrive itself for this backup – a mistake in the changes we’re about to make could cause the cloud copy, as well as the copies on other machines using the same OneDrive account, to be deleted.
As I said, it’s not likely, but the cost of failure would be high. Backing up first is a simple safety net.
Right-click on the OneDrive icon in the taskbar notification area, and click on Settings.
In the resulting dialog, in the Account tab, click on Unlink this PC.
This disconnects the OneDrive folder on your machine from your OneDrive account. It does not delete anything at all.
It will also bring up a dialog to set up OneDrive. Don’t close that – we’ll be using it shortly.
Using File Explorer, move the OneDrive folder to its new location.
In my case, since I want it at the root of my C: drive, I just clicked on the OneDrive folder, held the mouse button down, dragged the item over the C: drive, and released it. The result is that the OneDrive folder is moved from C:\Users\lnote\OneDrive to C:\OneDrive.
You can do the same to move it to any other location, including another drive.
Now that we’ve moved the folder, we need to reconnect with OneDrive.
Return to the OneDrive Setup window that was displayed after you disconnected it.
Enter your Microsoft account email address, click Sign in, enter your password, and click Sign in again (not shown). After successfully signing in, a “This is your OneDrive folder” message will be displayed, indicating where the OneDrive folder will be placed.
Click on the Change location link therein.
This will bring up a standard file selection box (not shown). Select the folder you want to contain the OneDrive folder. For example, I want my folder to be “C:\OneDrive”, so the folder I select is “C:\”.
Since you moved an existing OneDrive installation, setup will notice that there are files already in place, and warn you.
Since this is what we want, click on Use this location.
Once you’ve done so, the “This is your OneDrive folder” message will be updated to reflect the location you’ve specified.
Click Next, and then Next again on the following dialog (not shown), and you’re done. Your OneDrive folder has been moved. You can close any additional windows that remain.
Note: OneDrive will go through the process of making sure that everything is in sync.
Since all the files already exist on your machine, and nothing was added or deleted while we did this, there should be very little data transferred as part of this process. Depending on how large your OneDrive folder and its contents are, this could take a little time while OneDrive re-builds its understanding of what files you have.