I’m having trouble with Spotify finding my local apps after moving my Documents folder to a different drive. When I try to access spotify:app:tutorial, I get an error saying the app cannot be found.
I’ve already tried reinstalling Spotify completely and restarting my system multiple times. I downloaded the tutorial app from Spotify’s website and placed it in several different locations:
E:\MyUser\Documents\Spotify
E:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Local\Spotify
E:\MyUser\My Documents\Spotify
C:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Local\Spotify
None of these locations seem to work. I’m using Windows 7 64-bit and my Documents folder has been moved to the E: drive. Is there a way to determine exactly which directory Spotify searches for local applications? Has anyone else encountered this issue after relocating their Documents folder?
had this exact problem when i moved my docs folder to another drive last year. spotify still looks in the default windows profile location even tho you relocated everything.
try putting your spotify apps folder directly in C:\Users\YourUsername\Documents\Spotify instead of the new E: drive location. sometimes the app ignores the folder redirection completely and expects files in the original spot.
I encountered a similar issue after relocating my Documents folder. It turns out that Spotify can be quite finicky about the paths it looks at. A solution that worked for me involved creating a symbolic link to trick Spotify into recognizing the new location. You can do this by using Command Prompt as an administrator and entering:
mklink /D "C:\Users\[YourUsername]\Documents\Spotify" "E:\MyUser\Documents\Spotify"
This links your new directory to where Spotify expects its apps. Once that’s set up, just restart Spotify and you should be able to access your local apps without any issues.
The core issue is that Spotify’s local app detection mechanism predates the Documents folder relocation feature in Windows. When you move Documents through the standard Windows method, it updates most applications but Spotify maintains its own internal path references.
I faced this same problem after migrating to a new drive setup. The solution that worked was modifying Spotify’s configuration file directly. Navigate to %APPDATA%\Spotify and look for a file called prefs or config. You can edit this with a text editor to update the local file paths manually.
Additionally, check if there’s a folder junction at the original Documents location. Sometimes Windows creates these automatically during folder moves, but they can get corrupted. You might need to recreate it using junction commands rather than standard symbolic links.
Another approach is to run Spotify with elevated permissions temporarily, which sometimes forces it to re-scan and update its internal path cache. This worked for my setup on Windows 10 when other methods failed.
I ran into this headache about six months ago when I upgraded my system and moved everything to a secondary SSD. The problem is that Spotify caches the original Documents path internally and doesn’t refresh it properly even after folder relocation.
What eventually solved it for me was checking the actual environment variables that Spotify reads. Open Command Prompt and type ‘set’ to see all environment variables. Look for USERPROFILE and HOMEDRIVE entries - sometimes these still reference the old locations even after moving Documents through Windows settings.
I had to manually update the USERPROFILE variable to point to my new drive location, then completely clear Spotify’s cache folder before restarting the application. The cache folder is usually in AppData\Local\Spotify\Storage. Delete everything in there, restart Spotify, and it should pick up the correct paths from the updated environment variables.
This approach worked better than symbolic links for me because it addresses the root cause rather than working around it.
The issue stems from Spotify hardcoding certain registry paths regardless of where you’ve moved your Documents folder. After dealing with this myself, I found that Spotify checks the original Windows user profile path first, which doesn’t update automatically when you relocate Documents. What worked for me was checking the Windows registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders. Sometimes the “Personal” entry still points to the old C: drive location even after moving Documents. You can manually update this registry value to match your new E: drive path. Alternatively, try placing the Spotify folder directly in your user profile root on E: drive rather than in the Documents subfolder. Some applications reference the profile directory independently of the Documents redirect. Before making registry changes, create a backup point since incorrect modifications can cause system issues.