Moving user's folder in Win 11

I'd love to do that, but there is no Location tab for users' profile folders. I've moved folders like pictures and videos and documents using the Location tab but they are one level further down in the hierarchy. There are files in my profile that are rather large, and they are put there by various apps. I'd like to move them en masse by relocation the profile file, which, for me, is c:\users\tripp. It has no location  tab.

Again, there is never a Location tab on your user Profile folder because it is not meant to move and can only be done so by hacking that often causes problems. The location tabs are on the actual shell User folders like Documents, Pictures, Downloads, Music, Desktop, etc. which is how you know they are the official shell User folder.

If you moved them into another D directory that has your User Profile folder name on it, and never had moved the User Profile folder, then the User Profile folder Tripp on D is just another folder, not the default one which likely remains at C:\Users|Tripp.

To test this see if there are any official Shell User folders remaining in the default location that have the Location Tab on them. If so then the default User Profile folder remains at C:\Users and the one copied to D is just a copy and not official. You could have just as easily copied the shell user folders to D:\Documents or D:\Pictures because the Tripp folder on D is not the official User Profile folder.

If Quicken is saving files in the default User folder location in a Documents folder that's not official because it has no Location tab, then it's because that app is hard wired to save files to that folder path whether the User folder has been moved from there or not. If it's not there, then it will create one. This often happens with the Downloads folder. When it does I just empty the unofficial Downloads folder into the location I moved it and delete the second one.

I hope this helps. I know it can get confusing so ask back any questions. I've been sorting these out almost daily in forums for over a dozen years.

Hi Trippap. I'm Greg, 10 years awarded Windows MVP, specializing in Installation, Performance, Troubleshooting and Activation, here to help you.

Moving User folders to another drive works the same in Windows 11 and Windows 10 and is covered in the best tutorial here:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-move-default...

What's important to avoid misdirection is to first create a folder by the same name as the one you want to move in the target location, then right click on the shell User folder you want to move, choose the Location tab, then Move button to browse to the new location and choose the folder you created. Allow it to move the files in the folder, too.

You will know the new User folder is official because it will have the Document, Picture, Download arrow, Music note or Desktop screen icon on it and it will have a Location tab in Properties box that other folders don't have.

Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the results you post back I may have other suggestions if necessary.

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We might have confusion over terms. By user's profile, I mean the folder that contains the files that have a location tab. In my case, that's c:\users\tripp. It does not have a location tab, and I suspect that's because it is not supposed to be moved. I've moved some folders to d:\users\trippap and left some in c:\users\tripp. My OneDrive folder is in d:\users\tripp, as is my. That doesn't sound like anything is screwed up. My concerns started when I noticed that Quicken is using c:\users\tripp to hold a number of files, including regular backups that take a lot of space. I uninstalled Quicken and reinstalled, specifying the D: drive, and my issue appears to be resolved. So long as I keep extra stuff out of my c:\users\tripp folder, my SSD should be happy, so I'll watch out for that. Thanks for your help. I read through the links you provided and learned things about how Windows deals with user folders and what you can and cannot do with them.

More info. There is a file on my D: (raid) drive that has my internal user name tripp, and the Desktop folder, for example, has a Location tab. But the tripp file itself does not. It's address is D:\users\tripp. So I aparently moved a number of folders using the Location tab, but the profile folders don't have one. Further, when I select icons to display on the desktop under Personalize, the shortcut to my personal folder is to C:\users\tripp. I am confused, to say the least. By the way, the OneDrive folder is in the D:\users\tripp folder.