Notes on moving some AppData folder contents from C drive to D drive (Windows)
Last updated on 9 Nov. 2024
This post captures some of my current as well as old notes in this regard. Note that the overall intent is to free up more disk space on C drive (system drive).
9 Nov. 2024: Is it safe to delete AppData\Local\Temp?, https://superuser.com/questions/571901/is-it-safe-to-delete-appdata-local-temp , March 2013. : "Yes, you can. Windows already does it for you when you use the Disk Cleanup tool (cleanmgr.exe) and select the Temporary files checkbox." ... But when I tried to do so, Windows reported that it has removed "Temporary files" but going back and then coming again showed that "Temporary files" has not been deleted. Also, the Temp directory is not deleted and its contents seem to be same size as earlier.
So I attempted to manually move all Temp directory contents to another Temp directory I created on D:. Barring few files that seem to be used by Chrome instance that was running, all other files got moved. C: AppData Temp size shrank to around 11 MB from around 2 GB!
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19 Apr. 2024: I wanted to confirm that Windows on my PC now had my AppData\Roaming folder on D drive (due to Location change done in early March this year). %AppData% in Start Search box opened up D drive AppData\Roaming! Ref: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/appdata-where-to-find-the-appdata-folder-in-windows-10/
Now I think I can temporarily move all C drive AppData\Roaming to D drive and after some days delete it if the system works properly. Did that but Microsoft directory failed to be moved and NetSpeedMonitor had kept one file open and that could not be moved. So some programs seem to still look at C drive AppData\Roaming directory. Will need to see if other programs complain or do not work properly in which case I may have to copy their directories from the temp directory back to C drive AppData\Roaming directory.
But now the C drive AppData\Roaming directory takes up only 43.1 MB. Prior to above move, it took up 1005 MB.
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2nd March 2024: https://petri.com/appdata-folder/ provides procedure to move Roaming folder from C drive to another drive.
I did the above procedure for Roaming folder on C drive for Ravi-user. It resulted in creation of Roaming folder in D drive with 2.1 GB data. But the Roaming folder on C drive which was around that figure earlier, came down only to 0.98 GB! The question in my mind is whether some data has been duplicated and whether I can now move the remaining C drive Roaming folder completely to another folder on D drive (so that I can easily restore it back to C: drive if necessary). Will that break some apps? .. A point to note is that Properties dialog of D drive Roaming folder shows Location tab (now) and Properties dialog of Roaming folder of C drive does NOT show Location tab.
When I searched for additional info. about moving AppData, the articles I got involved regedit changes or creating some links. I am hesitant to do that for my regular userids on desktop PC:
- Can I move my AppData folder in Windows 10?, https://superuser.com/questions/1250288/can-i-move-my-appdata-folder-in-windows-10
- I tried to change appdata folder to another drive and now nothing works., https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/i-tried-to-change-appdata-folder-to-another-drive/07923cef-eaeb-4159-8d08-a298fe2cacac
- No Location tab in Properties in Windows 11/10, https://www.thewindowsclub.com/no-location-tab-in-properties-in-windows
- How to move the "C:\users\username\AppData" folder to another drive from C:\ drive?, https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-move-the-cusersusernameappdata-folder-to/35e0e881-6e66-4905-9f63-bd99477586b4
- Moving AppData folders does not delete original data, https://superuser.com/questions/1132507/moving-appdata-folders-does-not-delete-original-data
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