I accidentally connected my E drive and desktop to be the same destination. How do I switch it back?

Question

Everything that is on my desktop will now show up on my E drive rather than any saved folders or pictures that I had beforehand. I wish that I could give an explanation on how I did this, but I had realized what I had done hours after I had messed around with settings, trying to give more space on my C drive.

Answer 1

Hi, I'm Rodrigo and I will help you.
This is a common issue when moving the user folders to another drive. When you select Properties > Location tab > Move..., you are selecting where you want to place the files, not where you want to move the folder to.

The answer from Q&A Assist above is right to restore the default Desktop folder location, but when prompted to move the files to the new location, select "No", otherwise, all files on E: will be moved to the Desktop folder.

If you still want to move the Desktop folder to E: after restoring the folder location, create a new folder on E: (or inside any other folder on E:) and name it Desktop, select this folder on Desktop Properties > Location tab > Move...

Answer 2

Hi, I'm Rodrigo and I will help you.
This is a common issue when moving user folders to another location.
When you select a folder to change location on Properties > Location tab > Move... you are selecting the folder that will allocate the files, not where you want to move the folder to.

The solutions given by Q&A Assist above are right to restore the default location. But when prompted to move the files to the new location, select "No", otherwise, all files on E: will be moved to the Desktop folder. Manually move the files you want on Desktop later.

If you still want to move the Desktop folder to E:, create a folder on E: (or inside any folder you want on E:) and name it Desktop. After creating this folder, select it when moving Desktop.

Answer 3

The Desktop folder location needs to be pointed back to the default path in the user profile instead of the E: drive.

1. Open File Explorer.
2. In the left pane, locate and right‑click the current Desktop folder (the one that is showing the E: drive contents), then select Properties.
3. Select the Location tab.
4. Click Move….
5. In the folder picker, browse to the default Desktop location and select it:
   • Typically: C:\Users\<your‑username>\Desktop
6. Click Select Folder, then Apply.
7. When prompted to move files from the old location to the new one, choose Yes if those Desktop items should be moved back under the user profile.

If the Location tab is missing or the folder path is corrupted, reset it via the registry:

1. Press Windows + R, type regedit.exe, and press Enter.
2. Go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
3. In the right pane, find the Desktop entry.
4. Set its value data to the default:
   • Desktop → %USERPROFILE%\Desktop
5. Close Registry Editor.
6. Restart Explorer or sign out and sign back in (or restart the PC) for the change to take effect.

After this, Desktop and E: will be separate again, and new Desktop items will no longer appear on the E: drive.

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References:

• Where have my Desktop icons gone?
• Operation to change a personal folder location fails in Windows