How to Install Roblox Studio on the D: Drive

Roblox Studio installs to your C: drive by default — but if your C: drive is running low on space, or you simply prefer to keep your development tools on a secondary drive, moving the installation to D: is entirely possible. It just takes a few extra steps that Roblox's standard installer doesn't advertise upfront.

Here's exactly how it works, what can affect the process, and what to watch for depending on your setup.

Why Roblox Studio Doesn't Offer a Simple "Choose Location" Option

Unlike many traditional desktop applications, Roblox Studio uses a bootstrapper-style installer — a lightweight launcher that downloads and manages files automatically. This is the same system Roblox uses to keep the client and Studio updated silently in the background.

The downside: you don't get a standard "Browse for install location" dialog during setup. The bootstrapper drops files into a fixed AppData path, typically:

C:Users[YourUsername]AppDataLocalRoblox 

This is a per-user installation, not a system-wide one, which is why it lands in AppData rather than Program Files. That distinction matters when you're trying to redirect it.

Method 1: Symbolic Link (Symlink) — The Most Reliable Approach 🔧

The cleanest way to redirect Roblox Studio to your D: drive without fighting the installer is to use a Windows symbolic link (symlink). A symlink creates a pointer in the original location that silently redirects all reads and writes to a folder you specify on D:.

Step-by-step:

1. Uninstall Roblox Studio if it's currently installed, and delete any leftover Roblox folders from C:Users[YourUsername]AppDataLocal.

2. Create your target folder on D:, for example:

   D:Roblox 

3. Open Command Prompt as Administrator. Search for "cmd" in the Start menu, right-click, and select Run as administrator.

4. Create the symlink by running:

   mklink /D "C:Users[YourUsername]AppDataLocalRoblox" "D:Roblox" 

   Replace [YourUsername] with your actual Windows username.

5. Run the Roblox Studio installer from the official Roblox website. The bootstrapper will follow the symlink and write all files to D:Roblox — while still "thinking" it's writing to the default location.

After installation, you can confirm files are on D: by checking D:Roblox directly. The AppData entry will appear as a shortcut-style folder icon, which is normal.

Method 2: Moving Files After Installation and Re-linking

If Studio is already installed and you don't want to uninstall it first, you can reverse the process:

1. Copy the existing C:Users[YourUsername]AppDataLocalRoblox folder to D:Roblox.
2. Rename or delete the original folder from AppData.
3. Create the symlink as shown above pointing to the D: location.

This method carries slightly more risk — if the copy is incomplete or files are in use during the move, Studio may behave unexpectedly. A clean reinstall via Method 1 tends to be more stable.

What Affects Whether This Works Smoothly

Not every system handles this process identically. Several variables determine how straightforward the redirect will be:

What Stays on C: Regardless

Even with a successful symlink, a few components will remain on your C: drive. The Roblox Player launcher and certain registry entries are tied to your Windows user profile in ways that the symlink doesn't intercept. Studio's project files and scripts, however, can be saved anywhere — including D: — since you choose the save location manually within Studio itself.

It's also worth noting that Roblox's auto-updater will continue to work normally through the symlink. Updates write to D:Roblox just as they would have written to the original C: path.

Different Setups, Different Outcomes 💡

For users with a small SSD as C: and a larger secondary drive as D:, this setup can meaningfully free up space — Roblox Studio's full installation can reach several gigabytes once assets and cached content accumulate.

For users whose D: drive is a traditional spinning hard drive, the tradeoff shifts. Studio may load slower than it did on a faster C: drive, particularly during initial launch or when loading large projects with many assets.

For users on a single-drive system where D: is a partition of the same physical disk as C:, the space benefit is real but there's no performance difference between the two locations.

The symlink method is well-established and widely used for applications that don't natively support custom install paths — but how much you benefit from it depends entirely on what your D: drive actually is, how much space you're working with, and how you use Studio day to day.