How to Move Library Folders in Windows 8

Some Windows enthusiasts believe that the libraries related folders in Windows should be kept on a different partition for better protection against unforeseen hard disk problems and to boost Windows’ performance. If you want to move the libraries in Windows 7 or 8, then you cannot simply move the folders. Instead, you have to use a special feature available for the library folders in Windows to move their location to a different place on your hard disk. You can change their location to a different folder, different partition or a different hard disk. If you are worried about changing the location, then there is nothing to worry about – the process is reversible and you can switch the library locations back to their default settings.

You can follow these simple steps to move the libraries in Windows:

1. Press Win + R hotkey to open the Run dialog. In the Run dialog, type %UserProfile% and press Enter. This would open the user profile folder in Windows Explorer.
2. In the folder that opens, you would see many sub-folders like Downloads, My Pictures, My Videos, Desktop, Favorites, Links, My Documents, My Music, Saved Games, Searches etc. These all folders belong to one or another type of library. Right-click on the folder that you want to relocate and select Properties from the context-menu.
3. In the Properties window, select the Location tab. If the Location tab is not visible, then that folder cannot be moved.
4. Click on the button labeled Move. Select a target folder where you want to move this folder. You should choose a secure location where do not accidentally delete the folders. You should not select a location on a removable disk drive. Click on the OK button to continue.
5. You will be shown a confirmation dialog asking you whether you want to move the existing data files inside the folder as well. You should select Yes to move all the contents, so that any programs needing the files can find the files in the new location.
6. The moving of the folder to the new location may take short or long time depending on how much data it contains.
7. You can repeat all the above steps for all the different library folders if you want to move them too.

If at any later stage, you want to move the libraries folders back to the default location, then you can follow all the above instructions with a single variation – click on the Restore Default button in the step-4 instead of selecting a target location manually.