Questions tagged [folders]
"Folder" is the colloquial term for "directory" or "subdirectory", an abstraction of the file system hierarchical divisions used to organize files, documents, applicatons and pieces of programming code.
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Deleting all files but some on Mac in Terminal
Is it possible to write a command in Terminal that would delete all files on Mac except for some?
Let’s say I have one general folder that consists of N folders with different titles/names. I need to ...
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What is the “Sites” folder in my macOS Home directory?
After running Migration Assistant (from a 2021 MacBook, reformatted and built from scratch last week, onto a 2018 MacBook, reformatted today), a folder named “Sites” has appeared in my Home directory (...
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Deleting All Mail Not In Particular Mailboxes
I've organised all emails in my iCloud account that are important to me in particular mailboxes/ folders. I now want to delete all emails that are in the inbox but not in one of these folders. What's ...
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Use Smart Folder as default Finder folder
I tried to follow the answer to Use smart folder as Finders default folder, nothing happened for me.
I'm on Mac OS Sonoma Version 14.5 (23F79) with the beta program, but my Terminal seems to just ...
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Where to install folder of a command-line app in macOS, to be available by default in my shell? [duplicate]
tl;dr
Goal: Easily download zip file with a console app (and other files), execute it, and later replace it with updated version.
Details
When I want to download a console app, with a command-line ...
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Desktop Folders show in terminal (ls) and cmd-finder stack, but not on the actual desktop
The folders that are clearly in ~/Desktop, and used to show up on my actual desktop, don't any longer. The boot drive icon is still there. ls ~/Desktop shows my folders, and if I open one of those in ...
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Trying to merge multiple folders - I messed up
I wanted to merge multiple folders into one, so I used this command in terminal:
cd containing_folder
mv */* .
Well that didn't really go as planned and resulted in lots of folders being moved to my ...
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Sonoma 14.4: NFS shares automounted, but contents not visible
On my Mac Studio I have three folders that I use as mount points for NFS shares. I manage the NFS mounts with NFS Manager. Up until recently (I suspect the update to Sonoma 14.4, but I'm not sure) ...
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Undeleteable (dataless?) folder in MacOS: Permission denied, compressed chflag
I'm having a problem deleting a folder that was previously managed by Microsoft OneDrive.
The folder is called "WP". I already tried: sudo, disabling SIP, removing chflags.
❯ csrutil status
...
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Constantly check folder for specific file type and run terminal command with new filename as an argument
I have a folder ~/Downloads
I'm checking (using entr) it for .webm videos and when new file is added I need it to be converted to .mp4 BUT can't figure out the arguments passed...
ls . | entr ...
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Can folders become too full of items?
I have recently had 2 folders become too full of items. I can save items (bookmarks and backups) to the folder but they do not register and there is no error message saying nothing happened.
Result is ...
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I would like to see my Documents folder in Finder
My feeling is that this problem is somehow related to my question macOS creates "by itself" a new directory and moves files to it:
I can see my Documents folder from my zsh command line:
1-0-...
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Mac Desktop back to iCloud (from Dropbox) [duplicate]
A little while ago, Dropbox took over my Desktop, Documents and Downloads folder.
I want to have it back on iCloud. How can I do this?
Activating it on Screenshot does not work, the toggle can not be ...
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Add additional folders to Apple's TCC and PPPC permission system
In the latest macOS versions one must explicitly grant folder access to ~/Desktop, ~/Documents, and ~/Downloads in order for apps to access these locations.
How can I add custom folders to this ...
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Trouble with ~/Applications folder and moving applications on macOS Ventura
I recently encountered some issues with the ~/Applications folder on my macOS system and need some guidance on how to resolve them. Here's what happened:
I contacted Apple Support, and a technical ...
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"Utilities" folder empty?
I turned on my Mac after about a year of inactivity, and wanted to use the Terminal, but the Utilities folder was empty. I tried installing something that would add an item to that folder (in this ...
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MacOS vscode open dir via the right mouse button [duplicate]
There is a way to set the possibility of being able to open a dir on vs code via the right mouse button where the menu appears, as I do with the terminal in this way.
code .
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Can't enable iCloud Desktop & Documents Folders
I have an Apple M1 Mac mini (model Z12N00038CZ/A) with Ventura 13.5 (22G74) installed. It is my personal (private) computer, i.e. not issued to me by a company.
A few days ago, the iCloud Desktop &...
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Is it possible to connect folders to each other?
I would like to be able to have a folder on my desktop, and a folder elsewhere in finder such that when I make changes/add items to the folder on my desktop, the folder elsewhere receives the same ...
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Mount a local directory in another location of the filesystem as READ ONLY?
I regularly, but manually, rsync a certain local directory (A) to a remote machine. More than once I have rsynced in the wrong direction and deleted stuff that was new in A. I have backups but it ...
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How to recreate new documents and desktop folders that I accidentally deleted (Monterey 12.5)
Mac newbie here, please be gentle!
I can no longer see the desktop and document folders on my MacBook (ie, they don't show up in finder) after accidentally deleting them, or doing something daft like ...
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How to rename multiple files & filepaths at once on Mac without Terminal
Apart from this topic which offers a small variety of code scripts to use on Terminal, I thought using available apps would be more user-friendly.
The Finder in macOS can rename multiple files only if ...
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How do I save and restore visible windows in Apple's Finder?
When I restart my Macbook, I want to have the folders I had previously opened to be restored to the condition they were in prior to restart. This needs to happen after a delay because there are ...
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iCloud folder icons sync
I have a folder on iCloud Drive. On the Mac, I set the icon of this folder to some custom icon. However when I see this folder from my iPhone, it has the normal blue folder icon, not the custom icon I ...
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Deleting files from iCloud Drive also deletes them from local
I am becoming insane. I activated the iCloud Drive for the Documents folder to be sure not to lose any, but since I got more space now on the hard disk and iCloud space is running low I want the ...
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Unable to copy or compress folders in actively synching iCloud Documents and Desktop folders
I am using a 2022 Mac Studio M1 Ultra running Ventura 13.2.1, however I have been experiencing this issue since Monterey.
I can't compress or copy/duplicate folders when the parent folder is synching ...
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Specify timemachine backup folder blacklist for specific backup disks [duplicate]
I connected two backup disks in my time machine config, one is at the office and the other one is at home. On the office drive I don't want to backup all mac, so I excluded some folder like downloads ...
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How can I reverse lookup an alias, ie. find what links to a file or folder?
Suppose I have a folder /my/dir/ and an alias in ~/Documents (called thisdir) pointing to /my/dir/. How can I find the alias (ie. find all aliases) that points to /my/dir/?
This question is unlike a ...
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Working with Shared Folders & Files on Mac
I use shared folders on different computers for work. All mac machines. I pull folders from the shared folders. I do the work that needs to be done. Then I drop the work back into the shared folder so ...
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Where to save files that won't be Desktop or Documents?
I was told by Apple Support to hold my computer's cloud drive on pause while I organize my files. They saw how I had many files on Desktop and Documents. I have now somewhat organized them into ...
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How to open a specific directory or folder when click on the "Finder" folder icon on OSX Ventura
When I click on the "Finder" icon on my bottom bar, it always open the "Recent" folder like this:
Now, I want to open a specific folder for example "Documents" when ...
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Mac Automator - When given a folder containing many files with the same name format, organise the folder with new sub-folders [duplicate]
So I have a folder which contains many .mp3 and .cdg files (setting up a Karaoke system 😅)
All of the files follow the same naming system:
Artist - Song name [Karaoke]
Rather than having all of the ...
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How can I create the directory equivalent of /dev/null?
I have some directories that fill up with useless items such as ~/Library/Application Scripts or ~/Library/Caches or others. There are /dev/null type inodes that discard anything written to them ...
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How to symlink Mac OS' own folders (Monterey)?
I am looking for a way to accomplish the following on Monterey (12.6):
In the past I would symlink some Mac OS system folders (Documents, Downloads and Desktop) to folders already synced to a Synology ...
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Is there a commandline switch for "ls" that reveals "firmlinks"
With macOS Sierra APFS came with a new concept of "firmlinks", often described as being "between hardlinks and symlinks".
Several folders are now at System/Volumes/Data but are ...
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Can I group Spotlight results by folder?
I did a search in Spotlight and got 500 results:
I want to group them by folder. Is that possible? I tried right-clicking the column headers but there's no Folder option:
I tried pressing Cmd-J to ...
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How do I search a folder excluding one specific subfolder?
I have this folder structure:
Photos
|- Bangalore
|- Sydney
|- Videos
How do I search in Photos excluding the Videos subfolder?
I don't want to permanently exclude the subfolder from Spotlight, just ...
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Identify "UNIX-specific directories" in macOS
According to Apple's File System Programming Guide, macOS includes so-called UNIX-specific directories:
The directories in this category are inherited from traditional UNIX installations. They are an ...
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How to fix incorrect iCloud folder status icons
On one of my MacBooks, a few iCloud folders have persistent iCloud status icons, even though there is no iCloud pie chart upload/download activity in the side bar. For example, they will show as being ...
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Is it possible to customize a shortcut in Spotlight search which would lead me to a specific folder?
It'd be great if I could enter some name in Spotlight, for instance myproject, and then open a folder with the Finder.
Is that possible?
I have added too many folders to "Favorites". So, a ...
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Cannot view or manipulate one of MacOS's "special" folders in Terminal
I've somehow managed to cut myself (and the superuser???) off from my ~/Downloads directory in the Terminal.
I did not purposefully enter any Unix commands to change permissions or access.
I did ...
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How can I find what folder an app is in on my iPhone using iOS 15.6.1? [duplicate]
How can I find what folder an app is in on my iPhone using iOS 15.6.1? I am trying to find the app so that I can move it to the appropriate folder. The tips I have found in the forums are all outdated ...
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Mac not booting after moving SSD and HDD to another Mac
I had a mid-2011, 2.5GHz, AMD graphics, Mac Mini with an SSD and HDD using OWC’s dual drive setup. The SSD drive had the OS (10.11 I think) and the HDD had my home folder and an old version of OS X (...
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How do I move Facetime and other apps to different directories?
My Applications folder is getting very cluttered, and I would like to organize. Step one: move all the internet tools to an "Internet & Network" folder. Chrome, check. Firefox, check. ...
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How do I add/permit "staff" to this folder? "chgrp -R staff dir_name"
For some reason, there isn't "staff" user group on a folder that I just created.
I would like the to add/permit "staff" user group to read and write in this folder.
How do I add/...
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Setting Individual Folders To a Different Sorting Method? & Icon Size
How do you set each folder on the MacBook to a different sorting method?
It's driving me crazy: I've watched videos, googled & nothing, no answers.
Say I have 3 Folders on the desktop. I want to ...
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Naming folder "Framework.Service" appends ".app" extension which can't be removed
I'm currently having a really weird problem. I've checked out a git repo which has a folder named Framework.Service. When I run ls in the terminal it shows the folder name as is. But when I look at it ...
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Taking the first 7 characters of a folder name and appending it
I have a lot of folders named the same way with the year at the start and I would like to somehow move the year to the end of the folder name
For example, current folder name:
(1999) Robert Wyatt - ...
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How can I stop Mac Automator using previous specification for my actions?
How can I stop Automator using previous specification for my actions?
I’m going crazy with Automator.
I have three folders : Deployed, Draft and Live.
In both folders there is a Public folder:
I want ...
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Folders disappearing from search result list after consulting them
We have a customer that is experiencing a strange behavior when he searches folders on his MacBook (Catalina 10.15.7, i7 2.2Ghz, 16GB Ram).
For example :
he searches for "2022-D00170" which ...
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