Is there a way to move the my games folder

[VirantHD]

I don't like how it puts it in my documents folder is there a way I can change where this stuff is saved?

[Enkidoh]

Which folder specifically? The actual program folder, or the folder it keeps your settings and screenshots saved in?

If it's the former, just uninstall the game and then reinstall it in a different directory (as the install wizard should give you an option to set the installation directory) - make sure you back up the later folder however if you don't want to lose your settings such as saved character creation settings - you can also back up these settings within the launcher too. However I'm pretty sure the later folder unfortunately has to be saved specifically in My Documents as that is how the game is programmed to access those setting files stored in that folder.

I admit though that I am a complete novice when it comes to tinkering under the hood with these things so someone far more knowledgable on the subject would be a better person to ask this.

[Dzian]

If you just want to move your screenshots that's easy you can do that in the ingame options.

If you want to move the entire "My Games" directory that's a little bit more tricky to do as its a windows thing not a final fantasy thing. but there are several ways of doing it.

1: The Easiest way but perhaps most time consuming. is to do a clean install of windows and use syspreps audit mode to specify where you want to have system folders saved. I say it's easy because you can quite easily find xml setup files and tutprials for sysprep on google and all you need to do is edit them to where you want your folders stored and run the xml in sysprep and it will do everything else for you.

This is generally the safest way of doing things as its all done before the windows first time setup and thus the changes are global accross the entire system and future proofed. most people do this when they want to move the User directory onto a conventional hard disk to ensure it doesn't clog up there ssd's.

2: The not so easy way but perhaps quicker is to basically copy the entire My Games directory to wherever you want it. and then use Regedit to go through the registry searching for and changing all links to "My Games" to point to the new folder and once done simply delete the old one. The issue here is that you may find that going forwards any new games you install will create a new my games folder in your documents folder so to prevent this you need to go through the registry again searching for the windows default paths and changing those as well. It doesn't take too long but its easy to miss something if your not 100% sure what your searching for.

3: Another way of doing it is to copy the entire "My Games" directory to wherever you want it and then just create a symlink that points to that folder.
What this will do is mean the my games directory will still show up in your documents folder. but the contents of it will actually be on a different drive or wherever you put them.

This again is something a lot of people do with there my music folders. create a link to a seperate hardrive directory so that there music collection doesnt eat up space on there ssds.

[Niwashi]

If you want to move the entire "My Games" directory that's a little bit more tricky to do as its a windows thing not a final fantasy thing.

Too bad Windows doesn't treat My Games like the standard libraries (Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, etc.). With those, all you have to do is right click the folder, select "Properties" and go to the "Location" tab where you'll find a "Move" button that lets you just select the destination you want to move it to.

I moved all the standard library folders to my (larger) secondary drive. And since "My Games" is within "Documents", that went along with it. Extracting "My Games" to live somewhere other than within "Documents" is the tricky part, so I didn't bother with that part (though I would actually have preferred it to be separate).

[ Note: This is for Windows 10. I didn't look for such an option while I was using Win 7 and never used Win 8, so I don't know how they handle it. ]

[Rongway]

Too bad Windows doesn't treat My Games like the standard libraries (Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, etc.). With those, all you have to do is right click the folder, select "Properties" and go to the "Location" tab where you'll find a "Move" button that lets you just select the destination you want to move it to.

I moved all the standard library folders to my (larger) secondary drive. And since "My Games" is within "Documents", that went along with it. Extracting "My Games" to live somewhere other than within "Documents" is the tricky part, so I didn't bother with that part (though I would actually have preferred it to be separate).

[ Note: This is for Windows 10. I didn't look for such an option while I was using Win 7 and never used Win 8, so I don't know how they handle it. ]

You can redirect one directory to another using the command prompt to create a junction. For example, if you want to use "D:\FFXIV Data\" as your game settings directory,

Press Windows key
type: cmd
Press Enter

mklink /J "D:\FFXIV Data" "C:\Users\rongway\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn"

This will create a directory junction at "D:\FFXIV Data", which is sort of a virtual directory or an alias that points to the original XIV game data directory in your documents (hereafter "TOGDDir"). Navigating into "D:\FFXIV Data" will show that you are in "D:\FFXIV Data" but you will see the contents of TOGDDir. Any changes you make inside "D:\FFXIV Data" will be actual changes to files in TOGDDir.


It's also possible to junction in the opposite direction instead. Move all your data to "D:\FFXIV Data", delete TOGDDir, then mklink /J in the other direction. In this case, the game would believe it's still saving data to TOGDDir, but the data would actually be going to "D:\FFXIV Data".


In either case, both paths will be valid ways to get to your data, and the file explorer will show your location as whichever of the paths you used. The difference will be where the data is actually stored.

Undoing the junction is as simple as deleting the virtual folder. This will remove the link without affecting the files in the original location.