How to Move Epic Games to Another Drive in 3 Ways?

Overview of Epic and where are the games installed

Epic Games is one of the most renowned game developers in recent 10 years. Its major masterpieces include War Machine, Bulletstrom, and Fortnite. Epic Games also has its own game distribution platform similar to Steam and Origin where people can buy and download various games from Epic or other third-party companies. By default, all Epic games are installed to C:\Program Files\Epic Games\[Game Name].

Why move Epic games to another drive?

Over time, games could accumulate in the C drive and thus, the C drive full may occur and you may also be prompted with the warning that the C drive is running out of space now and then. Or sometimes, people wish to move the Epic games to a new SSD for better performance and shorter loading time. In these cases, many people wish to move Epic games to another drive like D, E, and F.

How to move Epic games to another drive?

Epic game install location change used to be a hard job because we couldn’t simply copy the games to another location which caused boot files loss. So, in the next tutorial, you’ll learn several secure methods to do it without any data loss.

Way 1. Try 2~3% download trick

If you’re still wondering how to change Epic games install location, then, you might as well try doing some changes to the Epic launcher itself without using other tools.

1. Take a backup copy of the Steam game you wish to move.

                1.1  Navigate to the game’s install directory. It’s should be C:\Program Files\Epic Games\[Game Name] by default.

                1.2 Copy the game’s folder to another location on your computer.

2. Launch Epic .

3. Hit “Library”.

4. Locate the game. Hit the 3-dot button by its side and click on “Uninstall”.

5. Once the game is uninstalled, click on it in your Library to install it and select the new install location where you hope it to be.

6. Once the download begins, wait until 2~3% gets finished, and then, hit the 3-dot button besides the game’s name and click on “Cancel Install”.

7. Navigate to the new install directory you previously chose and paste the backup game folder to it. When prompted to replace any duplicate files, simply hit “Replace” to proceed.

8. Restart the installation.

9. After the files get verified, you should be capable of starting the game without any hitch.

Way 2. Use Command Prompt

If you’re a pro user, you can create a symbolic link with Command Prompt to transfer Epic games to another drive.

1. Shut down Epic Games Launcher and any game that is running.

2. Transfer the game’s folder to another location.

3. Run Command Prompt as an administrator.

                3.1 Type “Command Prompt” in the search bar on the desktop.

                3.2 Right-click on the result and then, select “Run as administrator”.

4. On the popup window, type the command line mklink /D “#” “*” and hit “ENTER”

Note: # refers to the original location while * refers to the new location. To make it clear, please check the following image.

Way 3. Resort to third-party software

As you can see above, unless you fully comprehend the Epic Launcher, Way 1 could be very difficult. What’s more, the reinstallation also takes time. As for Way 2, it’s relatively easier than the former, however, once you make a wrong step, you could encounter severe system crash.

In either Way 1 or Way 2, you can only move a single game per time and if you hope to transfer multiple games to another drive simultaneously, you might as well try another third-party software which is also much simpler and safer.

With AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, you can copy the entire partition where the Epic games are to another drive within only a few clicks. It’s also the most secure way because there is no data loss. Besides partition clone, this software also allows for disk clone, and OS migration.

How to move Epic games to another drive? If you’re still bothered by this question, you might as well try this efficient disk management software to get it done with more ease.

Note: Before started, please ensure there is at least 1 piece of unallocated space in the target drive, if not, please delete or shrink the partition to create 1.

Step 1. Open the installed AOMEI Partition Assistant, click "Clone" in the main interface, and select "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk like SSD and click "Next".

Step 3. Select the destination disk to store the data on the source disk, and then click "Next".

Step 4. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to "Sector to Sector clone", and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.

Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to Optimize the performance of SSD if the target disk is an SSD drive. 

Tip: If you want to clone Windows to a smaller drive, the "Clone without resizing partitions"  button will be greyed out. Then, a Note about how to boot OS from the destination disk will pop up. Read and keep it in mind.

Step 5. After returning to the main interface, check the pending operation and click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit the operation.

Now, navigate to the folder where the games are and check whether those Epic games can be normally launched.

Conclusion

How to change install location Epic games? Here, I listed 3 pragmatic methods for Epic games change game install location. Each method has its own distinction and I can’t say which one is the best. As for me, I prefer way 3 – AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard for its user-friendly and intuitive UI and fast transfer speed. Meanwhile, if you want to try more features including partition split and allocation of free space, please upgrade to the professional edition.