We’re Still Here to Help (Even Over the Holidays!) - find out more here.
Forum Discussion
Unable to create a directory for iCloud Photos. Restarting your computer might... (Error 5)
I've search high and low for a solution to this error.
I had given up after over a year of trying to resolve it, on Windows 10. I've pickup up a new PC on Windows 11 and tried to install the latest version from the Windows Store and low and behold, this issue has come up again!
I've been through every single community post here, and in the Apple Communities. I'm happy to report that I've uncovered the cause, but can't find a solution.
When I install iCloud for Windows on a clean Windows 11 machine, the app places iCloud Photos and iCloud drive at;
c:\users\your_profile\Pictures\iCloud Photos
and if you have Microsoft OneDrive, it gives a message that says something to the effect that OneDrive is the users home directory, so the iCloud folder is actually placed in the user's root folder;
c:\users\your_profile\iCloud Photos
...but when I install on a machine that has DROPBOX, AND has the user's Pictures folder inside DropBox, the folders are placed at;
c:\users\your_profile\Dropbox\Pictures\iCloud Photos
BAM, the error occurs!
However, if DropBox is not installed, no problem. And if, Dropbox is installed and the user's Pictures folder is not inside Dropbox, no problem. As soon as the user has their Pictures folder inside Dropbox, then no love and the error results.
So iCloud for Windows is testing for the presence of a user's home folder being inside Microsoft One Drive and correctly handling that use case, but it does not do the same test for Dropbox and also correctly handle that use case.
It may even be that a user's home folder inside any cloud solution is a problem, but since this app is downloaded through the Microsoft store, they tested it for OneDrive and made it work only with that solution! That's messed up!
Anyone have ideas on how to solve this issue? I'd like to also have DropBox engineering work with Apple and Microsoft to perform the same kind of installation handling that the app does when it finds OneDrive! The solution is to simply have iCloud for Windows test for Dropbox and if Pictures is found inside DropBox, handle it the same way it does with OneDrive, just place the iCloud Photos folder in the User's profile root folder!
12 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
Did the same.
Until they fix the software, I've stopped the backup of Photos and Videos. At least now i got my photos from icloud. Now I have to find a way to save pictures from others sourcer directly in dropbox.
The original thread is here and is now locked.
The basic problem that if you have Dropbox installed on Windows 10/11, and you have the Windows Pictures junction pointing to a directory under your Dropbox installation, and you then install iCloud Photos, iCloud will then attempt to create its folders in the wrong place, resulting in a recurring "Unable to create directory" error message from iCloud. I am posting my workaround for anyone else who ran into this.
It appears that iCloud Photos uses the Windows Pictures junction as its root folder for photos on installation. So the basic idea is to redirect the junction temporarily to another location. The steps follow.
1. Uninstall iCloud.
2. Disable Dropbox syncing.
3. In Windows Explorer, in the left pane, right-click on Pictures, select Properties, and in the dialog box that comes up, go to the Location tab. Make a note of the folder location.
4. Change the folder to a place that makes sense for picture storage and is outside your Dropbox location. In my case, the folder was initially set to C:\Users\<username>\Dropbox\Photos and I changed this to C:\Users\<username>\Pictures. It will ask you if you want to relocate your files to the new directory; don't do this.
5. Reinstall iCloud enabling the Photos option, and it will create its folders under the folder you just specified.
6. Restore the former location of the Pictures junction by reverting the edit you performed in steps 3 and 4 above. Again, it will ask you if you want to relocate your files, and again you should not do this.
7. Re-enable Dropbox syncing.
Going forward iCloud and Dropbox will then each sync to their respective directories.
