Define the Location for the Blockchain Directory in the Initial installation of Daedalus in Windows 10

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Hi there!

My C: drive was running very low on space so before installing Daedalus I took the precaution of installing the wallet on a different directory to be safe.

Everything went smoothly at first but after the Blockchain was synced I noticed that the Blockchain folder installed itself in my C: drive and left me with a mere 2gb of space.

With so little space I could not load to wallet properly (it was stuck at checking the blockchain for hours and hours) so I decided to move the Blockchain folder to a different directory using this guide:

I followed all the instructions to a tee but divertirme I tried to launch the wallet from the desktop shortcut or from the Daedalus Mainnet executable in the directory the wallet was installed I got an error.

I have been at this for several days and I can’t waste more time trying to troubleshoot what is happening so I have decided to start fresh with a new installation of the wallet.

Considering that the last time I installed Daedalus I ran into so many problems to simply move the blockchain folder, is there anyway to set its location directly from the initial install?

Thank you all for all your help!

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Hello @h1ddenproc3ss, did you just move the folder or did you change the node configuration to use another folder ? I’m a bit limited regarding Windows specifics, but isn’t it possible to use a link or shortcut in order to point to the directory you want to use ? That way you wouldn’t even have to alter the configuration. As for defining the directory at install time, if there was such a possibility, you’d have seen it, no ? Windows installers tend to have a GUI.

EDIT: In fact, it’s just what seems described in the document you referred to (provided mklink is ln for Windows), what were the errors you encountered ?

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Hi Raph, thank you for your answer.

I made a copy of the Blockchain folder, placed it in a new directory and changed a file within the node configuration to reference to it and nada.

I asked about the installation because there wasn’t any option that I could see, but maybe in all my noobness I was missing something.

I am starting from scratch now, and I am going to try to move the folder before I sync the blockchain.

Crossing fingers!

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Ok. To be honest, I don’t think it is enough to move the folder, you should also create the link that will point to the new folder, otherwise Daedalus (or rather the node) will default to the old one. As for the so-called “noobness”, knowledge and experience do not make you immune to errors, just a bit less prone to.

As for the configuration change, it’s just an idea but there might be protections in place to prevent any modification of the intended configuration (hash or checksums comparison for instance). But I’m just guessing here.

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Thank you Raph, I did a clean install and I have been able to solve the problem :slight_smile:

Here is a link to the method I used for somebody that might stumble into the same problem:

And here are the instructions on the post:

  1. Make sure Daedalus is not running. Go to the folder *C:\Users[UserName]\AppData\Roaming* where [UserName] is your login name.
  2. Copy the folder Daedalus Mainnet
  3. Paste to the destination drive you want it to reside. For example: D:\Daedalus Mainnet
  4. Rename the original folder in *C:\Users[UserName]\AppData\Roaming* to something else e.g.: Daedalus Mainnet.bak
  5. Open a command prompt and change directory into *C:\Users[UserName]\AppData\Roaming*
  6. Run the following command while in the directory in bullet point #5 (for my specific example):
    mklink /D “Daedalus Mainnet” "D:\Daedalus Mainnet"
  7. Startup Daedalus. Check that everything is working as normal.
  8. You can now delete the Daedalus Mainnet.bak directory to free up the 4.6+ GB of space from the C drive
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Great :+1: then you should mark your post as accepted solution (tickbox), to make it more visible for further reference…

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When using the mklink command you need to be in an elevated command prompt to run it as an Adminstrator…

To do that in Windows 10 or 11, Press the Windows Logo on the bottom menu, type in Command Prompt in the search box and notice a list of options open up on the bottom right. Pick the Run as Administrator option.

Your command line will look like

C:\Windows\system32>

If you moved your “Daedalus Mainnet” folder from C to say G, drives, then your mklink command should say that:

And note the /J and the required “…” if there are spaces in the folder name:

Mklink /J “C:\Users\user1\AppData\Roaming\Daedalus Mainnet” “G:\Daedalus Mainnet”

The example of the original poster showed D: to D: which makes no sense and didn’t use the /J after mklink command.

And others just running the cmd command from any directory by doing run in Windows command prompt are needlessly running into errors.

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