I was setting up my mom’s new computer this week and noticed that the second hard drive was much bigger. The smaller one had the Windows operating system which is the C: drive but the other one had nothing on it. So I wanted to save space and change where her files would download to. I decided to change it to the larger hard drive (makes sense, right?). She needed any new files to end up on the bigger hard drive. If you have a similar reason, or any other reason, I’m going to show you how to change your download folder location. Before we get this class started, make sure to check out these other articles I have written recently:
- How To Change App Icons On Samsung
- How To Change Icon Shapes On Motorola
- How To Enable Auto Translation On TikTok
- How To Change Google Ads End Date
- How To Find Facebook Watch History
Time to start a lesson in changing locations.
How To Change Download Location
I will show you how on my Windows 10 laptop. It was also tested on Windows 11 and works the same.
Step 1: On the home screen of your computer, open File Explorer. This is usually the File Folder icon in your Taskbar. Click it.
Step 2: Once the File Explorer is open, look to the left menu and find the Downloads icon. This is your Download folder that we want to change. Right-click on it and a new menu will appear. From this menu look to the bottom and click on Properties.
Step 3: The Downloads Properties window will appear and from here click on the Location tab.
Step 4: The Location tab is where you will see which folder the downloads are assigned to. To change this, click the Move button in the middle.
Step 5: The Select a Destination window will pop up. I’m going to look at the left menu of all the drives and locations I have. Since I’m going to move this to my bigger hard drive, that is the one I’m looking for. I suggest that you create a Folder on the new drive and call it Downloads. Doing that makes it less confusing. I did this already so I will click on that folder on the D: Drive.
Step 6: After that, click on the Select Folder button at the bottom right of the window.
Step 7: You will now be on the Location tab again showing the new folder name. Time to click the Apply button at the bottom.
Warning: This will change all app download defaults to this new download locations.
Step 8: Now click the OK button. Before this can take effect, restart your computer. DONE!
Step 9: You can change it back to the original default location by going back to the Location tab and clicking the Restore Default button. Then click OK. For it to take effect, reboot once more. All Done!
You now know how to change that Download file location on your Windows computer. This worked on Windows 10 and 11. Time to share this amazing new knowledge with everyone.
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Thank you!