Win10 - Accidentally moved my downloads folder to D:\, can't seem to revert or change

I like my downloads folder to be moved from C:\Users\Joe\Downloads to D:\Downloads. I recently reformatted my PC and accidentally set the new location as D:\.

I can't see to either revert this change or change the location of downloads to D:\Downloads! The C:\Users\Joe\Downloads folder still exists because I can't create a folder with that name in the Joe\ folder, however I can't see it!

If I try to move the location of D:\ to D:\Downloads that also does not work (not that I expected it to)!


You'll need to edit the registry in this case, as you've moved it to the drive's root folder. In this case you can't restore it back using the Location tab.

Open Regedit.exe and go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Double-click {374DE290-123F-4565-9164-39C4925E467B} and change its value data to %USERPROFILE%\Downloads. Also ensure the value is of type REG_EXPAND_SZ if you're inputting an expandable/environment string in there. (Windows 10 User Shell Folders)