How to move the Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders out of OneDrive on Windows 11

January 16, 2023 4 Min Read

Some people, like me, don’t want to pay Microsoft as OneDrive fills up quickly with documents and pictures.

To move your Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders out of OneDrive and disable OneDrive

Make a backup copy the contents of the Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders into another directories on your computer incase anything goes wrong during the configuration change.
Open OneDrive
Click the gear icon
Select Settings
To stop OneDrive auto start with Windows turn off Start OneDrive when I sign in to Windows
Click the Manage Backup button
Click the Stop Backup link
Click the Stop Backup button
Click the Close button
Disable the backup of all folders and click the X in the upper right corner
On the Account tab click Unlink this PC
Click the Unlink account button
Close OneDrive with the X in the upper right corner
Click the OneDrive icon in the tool bar
Click the gear icon and select Quit OneDrive
Click the Close OneDrive button

If you need to change the default Desktop, Documents and Pictures path

When you disable and quit OneDrive, the default location for Desktop, Documents and Pictures should change to C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\…

If new files are still saved into the OneDrive folders

Open Regedit
- Hold the Windows key and press R
- Type regedit into the field and click OK
- Click the Yes button to allow Windows to start the application
Make sure the Address bar is visible in Regedit
- In the View menu you should see a checkmark next to the Address Bar item
Paste
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
into the address bar under the menu and press Enter
Check the value of the items with absolute paths to make sure those point to your user folder, not the OneDrive subfolder.

Disabling the OndeDrive backup of the folders OneDrive re-created the original Windows folders in your user directory: Desktop, Documents, Pictures.

Move the files and folders from your OneDrive folder to the newly created Desktop, Documents, Pictures folders. Leave the Where are my files shortcut in the OneDrive folder.

To set the drive where Windows saves files open Settings

In System select Storage
Click Advanced storage settings
Scroll down and select Where new content is saved
Select the destination drive. If you have only one drive, C: is the only option.