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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How many files in a folder is too many? [closed]
Many years ago I vaguely recall that the Finder in Mac OS X would start having problems if a folder contained 2,000 - 3,000 items or more.
Apple doc says that the HFS Plus file system has a ...
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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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How to save sent messages in Outlook to the same folder as message being replied to?
If I am replying to an email in Folder "TEST", how do I get a reply to automatically go to the Folder "TEST" as opposed to the Sent folder? This helps with productivity so that I don't have to move ...
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Renamed an icloud drive folder with the .tmp extension and files have disappeared
I read that I could rename a folder to have the..tmp extension to prevent it syncing over. I did this to a folder that had some confidential files, but I renamed the folder in my icloud drive and the ...
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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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How to replace the System's Download folder with one in an external drive?
When you open finder, there is a download folder with a unique icon. I'd like to move that folder to an external one and force the system to recognise that new location.
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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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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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Creating a "virtual" dir that wraps two (external) drives
I was wondering if MacOS Mojave (the most recent version I can be on due to some very expensive 32 bit applications) has a way to set up a "virtual" dir, or even virtual drive, that combines ...
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Cannot empty iCloud trash folder
I've had this infuriating problem for quite some time now, where I can't empty my Trash. More specifically, every time I empty it, there's a folder called temp(1) that keeps reappearing in there after ...
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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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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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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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Preview Images Inside Folder Icons
Can I insert an image or more than one image into a folder icon, (like overlaying the image onto the folder icon itself) so I can see some of the data that is in that folder before I click on it? I ...
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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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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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How to view Root directory and subdirectories in Finder?
Apparently, the Macintosh HD icon on the desktop points to the root directory but it is not showing all the contents.
Some of the files and directories are the same as those which I see when I ...
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Is there a workaround when Finder spends forever "calculating size"?
Has anyone else had the issue of it taking forever to calculate the size of a folder? I have a folder of about 500 GB on an external USB drive, and it seems to never finish "Calculating Size" when I ...
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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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Compress without .DS_Store and __MACOSX
When I compress a folder or file by right click menu of Mac OS X, the archived file contains .DS_Store and __MACOSX folders. Because I share the archived file online for download, Windows users ...
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How do I get a folder tree view in the left column of the Finder?
I'd like to have a tree view of my current folder (it's children and it's parents) for navigation in the left column of the finder's UI. How do I get that?
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How to find folder in MacOS Mail
I have a large number of message folders in MacOS Mail (v. 9.3, El Capitan 10.11.6), with a pretty deep hierarchy in places--I have folders in folders four or five deep in some places. (I am talking ...
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How to delete directory ~/Pictures?
This is on MacOS Catalina, but the same behavior has been observed in prior versions of MacOS.
Similar questions have been asked for other default directories in the default home directory, but this ...
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Entire "Users" folder is missing when booted into Recovery Mode
I posted this in the Apple Discussions forums, but have yet to get an answer that applies to the depth of which this situation currently exists.
My Mac's hard drive (running Mojave) suffered some ...
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Grayed out folder won't open in finder
I've never see this before.
Here's the facts:
It appears to be grayed out in the finder
I can not open it by clicking
I can move the folder
The permissions are set to 777 (overkill i know)
I can ...
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Can you monitor a folder for changes?
Let's say I have a folder that is located in "/tmp".
Let's say it is called myfolder "/tmp/myfolder" and I would like to protect this folder or I would like to be notified if ...
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How share folder in QEMU with plan9/virtfs between MacOS host and Linux guest?
I am trying to run a Linux Debian with qemu with MacOS Big Sur host.
Unfortunately virtfs doesn't work on Mac and there is no easy alternative that I have found.
Is there a way to share folders with ...
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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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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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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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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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Cannot open folders in ~/Documents via alias or recent items
I am having a similar issue as outlined in A "Library"-folder appeared in my Documents folder on Mac, Is that normal? but with the added problem of I cannot open any folder located in ~/...
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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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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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How to determine public temp directory on OS X to be write-accessible by www server?
I've MAMP running httpd server as _www and I'd like to assign the temporary directory as part of the shell script (bash).
I've tried to use $TMPDIR as per these posts:
How do I find the 'temp' ...
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Delete default folders: Documents, Public, etc -- permanently?
I do not use the folders ~/{Downloads, Documents, Public} and so I remove them. But some Mac OS X process keeps recreating them.
How can I disable the creation of these folders permanently? What ...
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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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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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Empty AssetsV2 folder in Finder
I was doing some snooping around in the Finder on my mac and found that there is an empty folder titled "AssetsV2"(https://i.sstatic.net/oHz5B.png).
Im unsure of the direct path but it's found by ...
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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 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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