I want to store my init.el on Google drive so it shares between computers. So I created a windows symlink: mklink .emacs.d Google\emacs I do this as administrator, because you have to on windows. I get the following error when using runemacs.exe -------------- Warning (initialization): Unable to access `user-emacs-directory' (~/.emacs.d/). Any data that would normally be written there may be lost! If you never want to see this message again, customize the variable `user-emacs-directory-warning'. -------------- Not sure what is going on here, but this is my guess: It is mistakenly thinking that the directory isn't writable probably because it is a rather than a , or alternatively because the symlink is owned by Administrators. In GNU Emacs 26.2 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2019-04-13 built on CIRROCUMULUS Repository revision: fd1b34bfba8f3f6298df47c8e10b61530426f749 Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.18362 Recent messages: For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. Configured using: 'configure --without-dbus --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32 --without-compress-install 'CFLAGS=-O2 -static -g3'' Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG SOUND NOTIFY ACL GNUTLS LIBXML2 ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS THREADS LCMS2 Important settings: value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8 locale-coding-system: cp1252 Major mode: Fundamental Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t buffer-read-only: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils elec-pair edmacro kmacro thing-cmds hide-comnt cl thingatpt+ thingatpt finder-inf package easymenu epg-config url-handlers url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs eieio-loaddefs password-cache url-vars seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib time-date mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel dos-w32 ls-lisp disp-table term/w32-win w32-win w32-vars term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote threads w32notify w32 lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 243150 15397) (symbols 48 27066 2) (miscs 40 78 137) (strings 32 76674 1849) (string-bytes 1 1860097) (vectors 16 22250) (vector-slots 8 620218 13358) (floats 8 54 257) (intervals 56 304 56) (buffers 992 12))