Change the iCloud Photos folder location in Windows 10

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16 points

Change the iCloud Photos folder location in Windows 10

I have installed the iCloud on my Windows 10 computer, activated the Photos option and it actually created 2 folders: one in the Users directory and one inside the Windows Pictures directory. In the users directory I see some of the photos I uploaded directly from the browser to iCloud.com, and in the Pictures directory I see some folders like Downloads.old, Uploads.old, My Photo Stream and the Shared folder.

I don't see any sense in all of these... Why create a separate folder in the Users directory? And how do I change the location of this folder to inside the Pictures directory?

Thanks in advance.

Windows, Windows 6

Posted on Apr 20, 2021 9:59 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Errol Sayre

Level 1

34 points

Apr 20, 2021 12:36 PM in response to gelo7777

I had found this solution… but noted that version 12.2 of iCloud for Windows actually calls the directory "iCloudPhotos" rather than "iCloud Photos". After trying that I get stuck with the message "Unable to create a directory for iCloud Photos. Restarting your computer might resolve the issue. (Error 15)".

I can't understand why Apple INSISTS on breaking a perfectly usable system… in prior versions of iCloud for Windows you could simply download the photos to any location…

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Answer 2

gelo7777 Author

Level 1

16 points

Apr 20, 2021 1:54 PM in response to Errol Sayre

Thank you very much. Actually when consulting your link I understood what the problem is. The iCloud version from Windows Store doesn't let choose the folders location, but if you download the iCloud software directly from the Apple website, you can very well choose and modify all kinds of photos folders. That's what I needed!

The solution with symbolic links will also work of course, but it's a bit more complicated. I already used it in the past and when backing up the computer I completely forgot about the symbolic links I used so it gave me some problems when moving all the files to another computer.

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Answer 3

Apr 20, 2021 7:06 PM in response to gelo7777

Glad I could help. Thanks for pointing out that sentence I missed. I'll try downloading the non-store version too.

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Change the iCloud Photos folder location in Windows 10

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