Cannot Move Public Folders to New Location

It's possible to move certain User folders such as Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures and Videos, to another location (e.g., another drive), but it seems to not be possible to move Public folders. It was possible to do this in Windows 10.

In Windows 11, the Location tab is still visible in the Properties of Public folders, but it's not possible to edit the location and the buttons (Restore Default, Move and Find Target) are missing.

I'm wondering if this feature was deprecated for Windows 11 or if I have some other problem, such as file permissions. I checked on two computers and it's the same on both. Both are recent clean installations of Windows 11.

I have seen work-arounds using the registry, but I would like to find out if it's possible to use the built-in method, as it handles creation, moving and deletion of files, as well as permissions.

Does anyone know if this feature is gone?

Hi, welcome to the forum.

In Windows 10, Public folders (e.g., C:\Users\Public\Documents) could be relocated via the Location tab in File Explorer.
In Windows 11, the Location tab is present but disabled — the buttons (Move, Restore Default, Find Target) are gone.
This is by design, not a bug or permission issue. Microsoft has allegedly deprecated GUI-based relocation of Public folders.

For shared data, you could create a custom shared folder on another drive with the proper permissions
To relocate Public folders, some things you could test:


NTFS Junction / Symbolic Link

1. Create a new folder on your target drive (e.g., D:\Shared\PublicDocuments)
2. Move the contents of C:\Users\Public\Documents to the new folder
3. Delete the original Documents folder (or rename it for backup)
4. Open Command Prompt as Administrator
5. Run:
6. Verify the link was created successfully — it should appear as a folder with a shortcut icon

Registry Edit — You would need to test this

1. Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter
2. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\Public
3. Modify the ProfileImagePath value to your desired location (e.g., D:\Shared\Public)
4. Restart your system

Symbolic links are safer and reversible
Registry edits affect system-wide references, so test it.
Always back up data or better, create a system image, before making changes

Microsoft seems to be steering users toward cloud-based and user-specific folder management. Because they would have better access for data collection, would be my guess.

This may be of use to you. On the sister site, Ten Forums.

I've found that the location tabs for public folders only work in Safe Mode.

Rollback_Jockey said:

I've found that the location tabs for public folders only work in Safe Mode.

Click to expand...

Interesting. And if you change the path to a public folder in Safe Mode, does it stick when loading into Windows, normally?

with the public folders you have to take ownership of them via the
properties/security settings for these folders.

i had to do that to delete the folders from the system
and they haven't returned as of yet.

best of luck, Steve ..

antspants said:

Interesting. And if you change the path to a public folder in Safe Mode, does it stick when loading into Windows, normally?

Click to expand...

Yep, that's how it work's i find.

antspants said:

Hi, welcome to the forum.

In Windows 10, Public folders (e.g., C:\Users\Public\Documents) could be relocated via the Location tab in File Explorer.
In Windows 11, the Location tab is present but disabled — the buttons (Move, Restore Default, Find Target) are gone.
This is by design, not a bug or permission issue. Microsoft has allegedly deprecated GUI-based relocation of Public folders.

For shared data, you could create a custom shared folder on another drive with the proper permissions
To relocate Public folders, some things you could test:

[deleted]

Microsoft seems to be steering users toward cloud-based and user-specific folder management. Because they would have better access for data collection, would be my guess.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the reply.

If Microsoft did this intentionally, I wonder why they didn't completely delete the feature, rather than break it. If they genuinely don't want people to have the ability to relocate the Public folders, they should have removed the Location tab, like they did for the other folders in user folders that aren't possible to relocate.

I encountered this issue after a clean installation of Windows 11 on a computer that was previously running Windows 10. I had relocated all of the User and Public folders to a second drive. This actually saved me from total loss of all of the files when the system drive got corrupted by the NIUBI Partition Editor.

I have four computers, two running Windows 11 and two still running Windows 10 22H2. The problem exists on both of the computers running Windows 11. I checked and found that it also exists on both of the computers running Windows 10. Perhaps this "feature" was introduced in one of the final updates.

XxXxX said:

with the public folders you have to take ownership of them via the
properties/security settings for these folders.

i had to do that to delete the folders from the system
and they haven't returned as of yet.

best of luck, Steve ..

Click to expand...

Thank you for the reply.

You might be on to something. I checked the properties of Users/Public and Users/Public/Documents. Both are owned by SYSTEM, but the user account has exactly the same effective access as SYSTEM.

However, I tried to relocate the documents folder in two different user accounts. The Location tab was only visible on the file belonging to the user I was logged in as. It's not exactly the same thing as the Public folders, but Windows is definitely taking the user account into consideration.

@bimmerdriver Have you tried checking in safe mode?

Rollback_Jockey said:

@bimmerdriver Have you tried checking in safe mode?

Click to expand...

Thank you for the suggestion. I haven't tried it yet, but I will give it a try and report back.

bimmerdriver said:

If Microsoft did this intentionally, I wonder why they didn't completely delete the feature,

Click to expand...

I wondered the same with bemusement as I tried to move the folders in File Explorer with elevated privileges.

antspants said:

I wondered the same with bemusement as I tried to move the folders in File Explorer with elevated privileges.

Click to expand...

after taking ownership of the public folders i had to delete all the other entries/owners for these folders
then i was able to delete them or in this case be able to move them.

best of luck, Steve .