Win10 - Accidentally moved my downloads folder to D:\, can't seem to revert or change

Question

I like my downloads folder to be moved from C:\Users\Joe\Downloads to D:\Downloads. I recently reformatted my PC and accidentally set the new location as D:\.

I can't see to either revert this change or change the location of downloads to D:\Downloads! The C:\Users\Joe\Downloads folder still exists because I can't create a folder with that name in the Joe\ folder, however I can't see it!

If I try to move the location of D:\ to D:\Downloads that also does not work (not that I expected it to)!

Solution

You'll need to edit the registry in this case, as you've moved it to the drive's root folder. In this case you can't restore it back using the Location tab.

Open Regedit.exe and go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Double-click {374DE290-123F-4565-9164-39C4925E467B} and change its value data to %USERPROFILE%\Downloads. Also ensure the value is of type REG_EXPAND_SZ if you're inputting an expandable/environment string in there. (Windows 10 User Shell Folders)

Comments

[Joe Shanahan]

Unfortunately that does not work: i.imgur.com/f5B1ZSM.png. If I try to set it back to default I get access denied error!

[Sanny]

Is your account an administrator? Are the folders (new and original) empty? It's better to work without any file in both folders. This dialogue box simplify the process better than editing the Registry

[Joe Shanahan]

I actually had to do this in 3 places! User Shell Folders/ and Shell Folders/ (2 registries in here!). After that I was able to move the folder but I still had an issue: The new downloads folder was hidden and a system folder so I couldn't navigate to it normally. Had to do attrib -r "D:\Downloads" -s -h in a command prompt and then attrib -r "D:\Downloads" +s to give it the download folder icon back :)

[w32sh]

The "shell folders" is obsolete, and programs no longer use it, and it updates automatically according to USF values.