Move Microsoft SkyDrive folder location without re-downloading all files

Microsoft SkyDrive is an awesome service and the recently released desktop synchronisation application makes keeping all of your files with you and up-to-date a breeze.

When you first install SkyDrive it prompts you to select the folder location in which to store your files. But what happens if you want to change that location down the track? The application itself doesn’t currently have that functionality.

One way is to unlink and re-link your account in the application Settings,  this requires you to re-download all of your files again. This may not be a big deal if you have a small number of files, but what do you do if you have many gigs of data to re-sync?

The following workaround helps you do just that:

1. Exit the SkyDrive application via your system tray.

2. Move the existing SkyDrive folder (under your user profile by default) to the new desired location. I moved mine to “D:\Max\SkyDrive”.

3. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the folder “c:\users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\SkyDrive\settings\” where [username] is your user profile.

4. Look for the .ini file with the random letters & numbers (in the above image, it is 08368ecf2576d77c.ini). Edit this with your favourite text editor.

5. Search for the line which starts with “library = “. This line shows the folder where your SkyDrive data was originally synchronised after “personal“. Change this to the proposed new file location.

Make sure you get this exactly right. Once you are done, Save and Close.

6. Launch SkyDrive from your Start Menu. You may get an error pop up, but the application will do a quick scan of the folder and confirm all is in order.


Comments

28 responses to “Move Microsoft SkyDrive folder location without re-downloading all files”

  1. I didn’t even get an error message. Thanks!

  2. Perfect!, No error for me also.

  3. Great – thanks for taking the trouble to post this.

  4. awesome, works perfectly, thanks dude

  5. mentalgiant Avatar
    mentalgiant

    can’t move the folder to a network drive 🙁

  6. Thanks a lot : D

  7. AnHund Avatar
    AnHund

    Excellent post and thanks a lot it worked perfectly.

  8. Thanks! I only had to make visible the AppData folder in the Control Panel selecting “Folder Options” > “View” > “Show hidden files”

  9. thanks dude..

  10. Saved my life :’)

  11. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Thank you.

    Microsoft has really gone the wrong direction for people who know how to use a computer and wish to access or customize anything.

    Many thanks.

  12. Derek Avatar
    Derek

    I found it easier to uninstall skydrive, move the skydrive folder, and re-install skydrive.

  13. Thank you for this. Skydrive would always redownload duplicates for some files (at a glance it would seem to be just the big files, >.>), hopefully this will spare me some downloading.

  14. fernandk Avatar
    fernandk

    thanks. it worked!

  15. Thanks a million! That is a fabulously easy fix!!!

  16. It’s much easier to exit skydrive, move the skydrive folder, and restart skydrive. It’ll then ask for the new location. Simply browse to it.

    1. This must be a feature of the updated SkyDrive client. Previously, doing this would cause SkyDrive to re-download all of the files.

  17. Thank You for the help

  18. Thanks, worked perfectly.

  19. Super Duper and thanks so much for pointing this out! I love simple .ini mods.

  20. You can also simply open the SkyDrive settings menu. Unlink the computer, move the SkyDrive folder and when re-linking Skydrive point to the new location rater than the default one. It will process for a while to compare the files, if everything is the same no up- or downloading will happen.

  21. Done. No probs!

  22. Aweome..Well explained. Able to accomplish without any errors.

  23. Brian Gee Avatar
    Brian Gee

    Good Man

  24. Thanks for taking the time!

  25. After a somewhat bizarre series of BSODs and random crashes in a row (seemingly solved by disconnecting from the mains power for a while) my SkyDrive folder suddenly became un-set. I tried the method you outline above but my .ini file doesn’t have a ‘library = ‘ entry. What should the preamble before the folder name be?

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