How to Change the Location of Your Google Drive Folder

Google’s cloud storage, Google Drive, is great for keeping your most important files safe and secure. With its generous 15 GB of free storage, integration with Google Docs, and the ability to access your drive from nearly anywhere – it’s an easy choice for those already using other Google services like Gmail.

Google Drive also offers a desktop app, called Backup and Sync, that makes accessing your drive even easier. With the Backup and Sync tool, Google Drive will sync with a local folder on your computer. You can then access your Google Drive straight from your operating system’s file explorer.

When setting up Backup and Sync for the first time, you must choose a local folder for your Google Drive to sync to. If you don’t manually create a folder, Backup and Sync will create a new folder at the default location.

As your Google Drive grows, you might find it necessary to change the location of the folder Google Drive syncs to, or move it entirely – here’s how!

How to Change the Default Location of Your Google Drive Folder

1. Click the white Cloud icon in the Windows Taskbar at the far right. If you don’t see the icon, it might be hidden in the System Tray so click the Up arrow first to reveal it.
   
2. In the window that appears, click the 3 dots at the upper right and select Preferences...
   
3. Click Google Drive in the menu at the left of the Preferences window.
   
4. Uncheck Sync My Drive to this computer and click the OK button at the bottom.
   
5. Click Continue on the warning message that appears.
   
6. The preferences window will close. Click the white Cloud icon in the taskbar again and open the Preferences window back up.
7. Click Google Drive on the left hand side (the Sync My Drive to this computer checkbox should now be greyed out).
8. This time, check the Sync My Drive to this computer checkbox but don’t click OK quite yet. Instead, click Change... to the right of Folder location.
   
9. In the file explorer window that appears, navigate to where you want the Google Drive folder to be and create a new folder. Rename the folder to something like Google Drive so that you know what it is later. Click Select Folder when finished.
   
   In the example below, we’re creating a new Google Driver folder on the C:\ drive.
   
10. Now click the OK button in the Preferences window.
11. The Preferences window will close once again and Google Drive will now start syncing with the new folder that you created.
12. If you want to remove the old folder to free up space, simply navigate to where it used to be and delete it. The default location is C:\Users\(Username)\Google Drive.

How to Move Your Google Drive Folder

1. Click the white Cloud icon in the Windows Taskbar at the far right. If you don’t see the icon, it might be hidden in the System Tray so click the Up arrow first to reveal it.
   
2. In the window that appears, click the 3 dots at the upper right and select Quit Backup and Sync.
   
3. Open the Windows file explorer and navigate to where your Google Drive folder currently is. Move the folder like you would with any other folder in Windows via drag and drop, cut / paste, etc.
4. After the folder has been moved, open Google Drive again (It’s actually called Backup and Sync from Google).
5. Click the white Cloud icon in the taskbar again and click the Locate button in the error message.
   
6. In the file explorer window that appears, navigate to where you moved the Google Drive folder to. Select it and click OK.
   
   In the example below, we’re selecting a Google Drive folder that was moved to the C:\ drive.
   

After clicking OK, the window will close and Google Drive will start syncing to the new folder location.