Is there a way to move the my games folder

[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.