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Frustrated customer
Participant
October 3, 2023
Answered

Photoshop is not saving to Desktop on Windows 11?

  • October 3, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 727 views

Hi all. I envcountered a strange thing with my brand new photoshop on my brand new PC and Windows 11 today (2-3 weeks old). Apparently i can't save to desktop. Or .... well i can "Save As" and chose desktop and things looks great in PS - no warning or anything. But when i look at the dekstop the file don't show up? Although then minutes later - like 3 - 5 minutes later its sometimes suddenly there (although this one i saved 5 mintues ago to test before i wrote here still has not shown up??). Its a small tiny image like 700x500 px or thereabouts with 3 layers so it should really really not take minutes to save on this beast of a computer. Any idea whats wrong here? Its a sneaky thing when i get no warning so i think my file is saved. If i close down Photoshop it might all be gone? o.0

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer D Fosse

    The desktop is normally a physical folder under the user account directory, on your system drive (C). It's hidden by default, but if you unhide it, it's just a normal folder in a normal folder tree.

     

    But it is now possible to put the Windows desktop in the cloud. That's when you encounter this problem of "virtual" folders.

    3 replies

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    October 4, 2023

    The desktop is normally a physical folder under the user account directory, on your system drive (C). It's hidden by default, but if you unhide it, it's just a normal folder in a normal folder tree.

     

    But it is now possible to put the Windows desktop in the cloud. That's when you encounter this problem of "virtual" folders.

      F
      Frustrated customerAuthor
      Participant
      October 4, 2023

      That is a very good explanation! I did realize after i had posted here that right clicking on the desktop and hitting "Refresh" did make the file pop out, so this is absolutely the issue i encountered (and once again its not truly Photoshops fault that stuff is not working 🙂 I will make that "save folder" somewhere else on my drive and add the shortcut to it on my desktop as you advice, i can imagine ill encounter this issue again so i might as well fix it for good now. Thank you so much for replying so fast here!

        sleerfnivek
        sleerfnivek
        Inspiring
        October 4, 2023

        This is likely a very old Windows bug that seems to have no rhyme or reason. It not only happens on the desktop but also in the Downloads folder and less often, in the other Windows folders such as Documents, Pictures, etc. 
        This is becayse these folders aren't actually folders as part of the directory structure but are instead part of the Windows OS and they can be moved and pointed to all sorts of places. So for example, I have OneDrive, OneDrive for business, and my "Documents" folder is on my personal OneDrive with Videos but "Pictures" is located on OneDrive for Business. But they just appear in the same place in Explorer regardless of where you physically located them. 

        But this means that all of these folders have to be interpreted and contents loaded into the mini app....which is apparently a low priority process and gets edged out by other things on occasion and doesn't update.

        One things that causes a similar behavior for example is downloading a zip file to the downloads folder and unzipping it there. Often it just won't appear. Refresh/f5 doesn't always work, even closing explorer and opening it doesn't always work. Yet if you try to unzip again, it will ask if you want to overwrite the file that you can't see is there. 

        It's bizarre, wonky, and annoying. 

         

        The solution is to not use those locations to save things. Use File Explorer to put a convenient folder somewhere directly on a drive and put a Quick Access shortcut in File Explorer and/or a shortcut to it on your desktop. it will save you a ton of grief. 

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