AOMEI Partition Assistant
How to Move Folder to another Drive Using Command Prompt
If you don’t know how to move folder to another drive using Command Prompt, this post will show you all details and offer an alternative tool to move folder easier.
By Lucas / Updated on May 12, 2023
About Command Prompt
In Windows, there is a command-line interpreter tool called Command Prompt. It is used to carry out previously entered instructions. Many techies like to adjust the settings for developing the PC as a very own style gadget using CMD.
The commands employ scripts and batch files to execute advanced administrative tasks and troubleshoot or address particular Windows issues.
When your system encounters some problems and you can’t boot it, you can plug an installation media into your PC and boot into WinPE and go to CMD using commands to fix the system errors, such as rebuilding corrupted MBR, running CHKDSK, or creating new boot partition, etc.
Although many commands are quite complex for normal PC users, they have to try their best to use them to save their crashed PC, which is hard for many users.
Move folder to another drive using Command Prompt
Moving a folder is such an easy task in daily use. Users only need to copy and paste or directly drag and drop from the source location to the target location.
However, when the system crashed because of system errors only CMD can give you some help, or when you need to move some crucial data folder to another drive away from the virus-attacked drive, you’ll need to use the CMD move command to move folders and subfolders.
The command we need is quite simple, so we’ll show you an example at first, and then we’ll explain the command.
In CMD, please type: move source drive letter:\source folder\* destination drive letter:\destination folder\
In the example, we type: move c:\books\* e:\paper\, after we hit “Enter”, the files and subfolders in the folder “books” will be moved to the folder “paper” on the E drive.
1. If you omit the destination folder, the command will be denied. Unless you wish to move the folder under the same drive (c:\folder name\* c:\).
2. The move command will move all contents under the source folder, not the folder itself. After the move, the source folder will be empty.
Alternative of CMD to move folder easier
Though the CMD move command can move pieces of stuff in the folder, it actually can’t move the folder itself, only the contents will be moved. And there must have a destination folder, otherwise, the command may not run successfully or all contents will be stored on the target drive separately.
To migrate the entire folder to another drive or external device and see the progress, we suggest you turn to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. It is a Windows PC disk and partition manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP users.
In the operation, users can add multiple folders that need to move, and use the mouse to control the whole progress. Even when your PC can’t boot normally after you make a bootable media with this tool to create an AOMEI Partition Assistant repair USB and boot from it, you can move important folders from the crashed C drive to another drive.
Now, let’s see the details.
Step 1. Install and run this tool, click “Free up”, and choose “App Mover”.
Step 2. In the new window, choose the “Move Folder” feature.
Step 3. Click “Add folder” to add the folders you want to move, and select the destination drive under the folder box.
◤ Note: You can’t move system folders. And if the selected folder has opened documents, they’ll be closed forcibly during the move.
Step 4. Click “Move”. Make sure the destination drive has sufficient space to save the folder, otherwise you’ll receive info showing the moving is unavailable.
Step 5. Click "OK" in the warning and "FInish" to over the task.
1. To ensure the folders can be operated normally, please do not move or delete the files in the source and target directory.
2. Moving folder is only available between NTFS drives, if you need to transfer a folder from or to a FAT partition, please convert to the NTFS file system at first, it won’t damage your data.
3. We don't suggest you move program folders, which might cause program boot failure, if you need to move applications, please choose the "App Mover" feature.
4. You can use "Delete Large Files" to release more potential free space on the disk.
Then, wait for a while, the selected folders will be moved to the new location.
Conclusion
Now you know how to move folder to another drive using Command Prompt. The move command isn’t difficult, but you need to know the conditions we list.
AOMEI Partition Assistant can also assist you to move folders, and it’s easy to use for all users. What’s more, you can do other management on your PC with this tool, like migrating OS to another disk, converting FAT32 to NTFS without formatting, and so on.
