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I've used SymbolicLinker 2.0 by Nick Zitzmann to symlink a few folders from my OS SSD drive to my main data drive. The reason I created the links in the first place was to save the space on my SSD. I've created the symlinked folders and have moved them onto the drive I want them on.

The symbolic links seem to be working fine but the original folders still on the SSD are still holding the files and taking up the same amount of space as the linked folders on my data drive. I'm a little bit confused.

Am I doing something wrong, or do the files appear to be on the SSD when they aren't at all?

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Where do you want to have the data stored at the end, on the SSD or on the main drive? – patrix♦ Aug 15 '12 at 8:11
I've been doing the symlinks the wrong way round by the looks of it. I'm trying to symlink my document, download, movies, music and picture folders from under my user name over on to my HDD. I found a tutorial on YouTube showing how to make symbolic links using the service I said about earlier. I can copy the folders over to my HDD but can't delete the original from my SSD as they are required by mac os. Any ideas? – Adam Jones Aug 15 '12 at 8:22
Shall we delete this question or edit it to show how you discovered your error? It's likely someone else might be in the same situation - and you answering your own question might help them. You can always ask your second question on how to sym link and keep this for how the system didn't work as opposed to how you hope it will work going forward. – bmike♦ Aug 15 '12 at 14:19

closed as not a real question by Mark, patrix♦, cksum, bmike♦ Aug 16 '12 at 15:05

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

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(be careful, don't issue commands if you don't know what they are doing. i told you, so you can't blame me, in case!)

in terminal: 

man cp
man rm
man ln

cp -R ~/Documents /Volumes/<Other HD>

substitute <Other HD> with the volume's name of your mechanical hard drive.
make sure Documents has been copied in its entirety.

rm -r ~/Documents  
ln -s /Volumes/<Other HD>/Documents ~/Documents

do this with every other folder you'd like to outsource.

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