How to Mount Drives as Folders in Windows 11

How to mount a drive as a folder rather than a letter in 🪟 Windows 11

Mounting a drive as a folder keeps your file system tidy. You link a whole drive or partition to an empty folder on your C: drive, and everything you save in that folder goes to the other drive.

When you connect a drive, Windows normally gives it a letter automatically. Here is an example:

That same drive can also be mounted in a folder. To do that, create an empty folder.

If the folder already holds files, Windows will not let you use it.

Next, go to Windows Settings app ⚙️.

Windows 11 keeps most of its settings in one place. System configuration, user accounts and Windows Update 🔃 are all managed from the System Settings pane.

You can open System Settings in two ways:

1. Press the Windows key + I shortcut.
2. Or click Start > Settings,, as shown in the image below.

You can also click the search box 🔍 on the taskbar 🖥️, type Settings, and select the app from the results.

The Settings ⚙️ window should look similar to the image below. Do this:

1. Click System in the left pane.
2. Click the Storage tile in the right pane, as highlighted in the image. The storage overview opens.

3. On the System › Storage page, click the Advanced storage settings tile to expand it. A short list of extra storage options appears.

4. Click the Disks & volumes tile, as highlighted below. Windows lists every disk and volume connected to your PC.

5. On the System › Storage › Disks & volumes page, select the drive you want to mount in a folder.
6. Click the Properties button for that drive. The Properties page for the volume opens.

7. Under Paths, click the Add button. A box appears where you enter the folder path.

8. Type the path to your empty folder, or click the Browse button and pick the folder.
9. Confirm the choice. If Windows rejects the folder, check that it is empty and on an NTFS volume.

The folder now opens the drive. Anything you save in it is stored on the mounted drive, not on C:. File Explorer 📁 should show the folder with the drive’s contents inside.

You can do the same thing in Disk Management. Right-click the Start button ⊞ and choose Disk Management to open it. Then follow these steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-click the partition or volume you want to mount as a folder.
2. Click Change Drive Letter and Paths, then click Add.
3. Select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder.
4. Type the path to an empty folder on an NTFS volume, or click Browse to find it.
5. Click OK. The new path now shows in the volume’s list of paths.

You can also do it from the command line. From Windows Terminal with Command Prompt, run it as administrator and do this:

1. Open a command prompt and type diskpart.
2. At the DISKPART prompt, type list volume. Note the number of the volume you want to assign the path to.
3. At the DISKPART prompt, type select volume <volumenumber>, using the volume number you noted.
4. At the DISKPART prompt, type assign [mount=<path>], where the path is your empty NTFS folder.

The drive is now mounted in a folder.

The folder stays on your disk as an empty folder, and your files stay on the mounted drive. You can also remove the path from the volume's Properties page in Settings.

That should do it!

Conclusion:

• Mounting a drive as a folder gives you access to the drive's contents through an ordinary folder path.
• You can use Windows Settings, Disk Management or the command prompt. All three give the same result, so use whichever you prefer.
• You can mount internal or external drives this way. For an external drive, remember the folder only shows its contents while the drive is connected.

Frequently Asked Questions

To mount a drive as a folder in Windows 11, link the drive to an empty folder path instead of a drive letter. It takes a few minutes, as long as the destination folder has no files in it.