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I have recently gotten my hands on a new computer (MSI G Series GS70 STEALTH-037 - specs below if relevant) that has a Solid State Drive (SSD) that goes along with my hard drive (HDD). I would like to move Minecraft to the SSD is because it will be a lot smoother and faster than on the hard drive.

How can I move/transfer/change Minecraft from using the typical root it goes to in the %appdata% folder to the SSD drive?

PC Specs:

  • CPU: Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4 GHz (6 MB Cache)
  • RAM: 12 GB DDR3L SDRAM
  • Drives: 750 GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive, 128 GB Solid-State Drive
  • Display/Graphics: 17.3-Inch Screen, NVIDIA GeForce GTX860M with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM
  • OS: Windows 8.1
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    You should consider moving your entire OS to your SSD (and let Minecraft live in its default location in C:). Your OS can be vastly sped up by the SSD, and therefore all games that run on top of it benefit, too.
    – Aaron Franke
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 23:12

5 Answers 5

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There are 3 easy steps you need to take to move Minecraft to your SSD.

1. Find your .minecraft folder.

Your .minecraft folder should be located in %appdata%\.minecraft on your computer.

2. Move your .minecraft folder.

Copy the entire .minecraft folder to your SSD. Lets assume your SSD is D: and you copy the folder to the directory D:\Games\.minecraft

3. Let Minecraft know.

You finally have to tell the Minecraft launcher that the game is now located on D:. Open your Minecraft launcher and click Edit Profile. When the dialogue box opens, tick the Game Directory check box and type in the new directory:

enter image description here

You can check that you put in the correct directory by clicking the "Open Game Dir" button.

Click Save Profile and your done! Minecraft will now be loading from your SSD.

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  • Is this with each specific profile or will it change if someone else logs on with their account? In other words, is the new directory attached to the one account or is it now rooted there?
    – Baked Potato
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 22:14
  • Profiles are not linked to your account but your computer. It doesn't matter who logs on your computer, the profile will still be there.
    – Caleb
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 22:17
  • Alright, thanks for the info, also, in step three I believe you meant in disk D and not disk C
    – Baked Potato
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 22:21
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    This only partly works. The latest version still wants to download stuff to the default folder location, despite it being relocated in the profile.
    – Mr Pablo
    Commented Sep 23, 2015 at 11:32
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You can use mklink to create a directory junction, which will enable you to access Minecraft in the usual way while it is physically stored elsewhere (in your case, on another drive).

Move the Minecraft folder where you want it to physically reside, then hit Win-R, enter cmd, hit Enter and input the following command:

mklink /j link target, where target is the new location of the Minecraft folder and link is where it originally was.

Example: mklink /j C:\Users\Username\Appdata\Roaming\.minecraft D:\Minecraft

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  • I'm not accustomed to windows 8 yet, how can I get to the cmd on said OS? (I can't try this solution atm because I'm not currently at my laptop)
    – Baked Potato
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 18:07
  • @BakedPotato it is built-in.
    – kotekzot
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 18:16
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    Hit windows key then type 'cmd' and press enter, pretty much. Also, ctrl + (shift?) + right click in the folder from explorer and click "Open command window here"
    – aikeru
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 18:16
  • @kotekzot I understand that it is built in, I was just wondering if the way you described it as works with Windows 8
    – Baked Potato
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 18:49
  • @BakedPotato it should.
    – kotekzot
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 19:04
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Assuming you are on Windows, this might be easy.

This link has a solution that is simple enough. In summary:

  1. move/copy the .minecraft folder to another location
  2. create a batch file that sets the APPDATA environment variable (for that session) to the folder you want minecraft to run in and then execute the minecraft.exe
  3. run the batch when you wish to play

This said, I think the biggest thing you can do to improve minecraft performance is to give it more RAM (either by having more RAM and/or telling the Java process it can use more memory) if you aren't already.

NOTE: Calling "SET" in a batch file only SET's the environment variable for that command window session. It does not affect any other session/window except those launched from that window. IOW, it's harmless for this purpose.

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  • And don't forget to set the variable back after you're done playing, or other programs might have problems of their own.
    – Humungus
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 17:22
  • Well while yes the solution you have given is usable but it is rather messy, also, the smoothness of a program such as minecraft doesn't solely rely on RAM. RAM is used to process large amount of data at once (correct me if I'm wrong) but in my opinion the best way to improve on performance of minecraft is how fast the data can be used. A fast processor, good drive, and a good graphics card is the easiest way to improve minecraft as well as any other game. Don't forget this is an opinion, aka doesn't mean you are wrong, also my computer already has 12 gb of RAM so I think that is checked off.
    – Baked Potato
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 18:05
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    About setting the variables back: as long as you set them in the batch, as @aikeru suggests, instead of in your system environment settings, you will be fine.
    – JvR
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 18:05
  • The fact that you have 12GB RAM does not mean the Java process has been told it can use more than XGB of the RAM available. I don't know about all versions of Java but on my home server and with certain mods I've set the RAM explicitly, without which Minecraft runs quite poorly. Also, as JvR said, this method is not messy, no permanent change is made using SET. Hope this is helpful :)
    – aikeru
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 18:18
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Even when you choose the game directory minecraft will still work on the main drive. On the game directory are saved only texture packs and saves. So basically useless

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In Windows you have local profile of Minecraft in %APPDATA%.minecraft. Assuming you want to move .minecraft to your SSD disk D:

  1. Move directory %APPDATA%.minecraft to D:\Games\

  2. Run CMD as administrator and execute:

    mklink /j %APPDATA%\.minecraft D:\Games\.minecraft

You will have junction in your profile and you can use both of them in Minecraft Launcher.

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