Questions tagged [symlink]
symbolic link, a type of file that is a reference to another file or folder
196
questions
1
vote
1answer
25 views
Strange behaviour of symlink /var
I have a pretty new MacBook and got this from our central IT department pre-installed.
I experienced a problem, which I first thought was related to Terraform, but after investigation this seems to be ...
1
vote
1answer
21 views
Any way to make symlinks or aliases resolve over a network with macOS?
So I like to move my big folders from the home folder on the macOS System SSD to a hard drive and keep the SSD mainly for the system files and apps, a fairly common practice.
Problem is when I want to ...
0
votes
1answer
29 views
Create a symlink pointing to a variable filepath
I am using MacVim installed via homebrew. The absolute path to the app is /usr/local/Cellar/macvim/xxxxxx/MacVim.app, with xxxxxx the version number. MacVim version number is updated often.
Now I ...
0
votes
1answer
27 views
Trying to create a symbolic link in OS 10.14.6
I'm trying to install a symbolic link but when I enter the command I think should work ("sudo ln -s /Applications/harris/idl87/lib/xop/xop2.4/xop /usr/local/bin/xop"), I get no response at all. ????
0
votes
0answers
35 views
Under Catalina, should I use HFS+ or APFS when symlinking media folders to external drive
As I'm planning to install an SSD into my iMac with smaller capacity than the internal Fusion Drive its replacing, I will need to symlink my Movies, Music and Pictures folders to an external mains ...
0
votes
0answers
15 views
rsync options for maintaining app bundles' symlinks and metadata when copying onto and back from SMB shares?
In the past I've generally used rsync -a to primarily copy data around, but I'm shifting gears to a Windows Server 2019 platform with SMB shares to receive everything from app bundle backups to Photos ...
-1
votes
2answers
50 views
How to properly symlink files in the ~/Library/Preferences
Many apps store their settings in a file under ~/Library/Preferences. I want to version these files in my dotfiles repo. I like my dotfiles repo to be in its own tidy folder so my general approach to ...
0
votes
0answers
100 views
Archive Utility: error 21 - is a directory
I have a zip file that contains symlink, every zip utility able to unpack it (unzip WithSymlink.zip works) but when I try to simply double click on it I et the error error 21 - is a directory
Why is ...
0
votes
0answers
69 views
nvm (node version manager) nvm,node,npm not found
I did install nvm regarding the documentation, then installed the latest LTS node, nvm install 12.16.1 and globally installed yarn.
everything was working well, the node -v and npm -v and which node ...
3
votes
1answer
85 views
Is there a GUI difftool that does symlinks?
Let's say I have some directories with symlinks in them.
.
├── dirA
│ ├── file013
│ └── file212
└── dirB
├── file013
└── file212
2 directories, 4 files
The symlinks are pointing to ...
0
votes
1answer
35 views
How to create a custom readable symlink out of a sandboxed container?
How do I create a readable symlink from within a ~/Library/Containers/.../Data/ app folder to a file outside?
It seems that due to the macOS sandboxing mechanism, this doesn't work out of the box. ...
1
vote
0answers
85 views
Mailbox set as read-only when symlinking from an external storage
I have multiple mailboxes and I want to save space by moving some of them in an external storage. I'd like to still be able to view the email using Mail.app even if said mailbox is now located in an ...
0
votes
1answer
33 views
Any better way to move app library path to external drive than using symbolic link?
I am running MacOS 10.14.5. I used symbolic links a lot to free up my internal drive. My internal drive is almost full and I need to free up some spaces again. Normally, the symbolic links solution ...
1
vote
1answer
94 views
MacOS Mail cannot access folders on external drive via symlinks
My 2012 Mac Mini is running High Sierra, and I have copied older mail folders to a partition of an external drive. In the User mail folder, I then placed symlinks. In Finder, the symlinks show the ...
0
votes
0answers
12 views
How to selectively remove sym-linked files from a certain directly
In /usr/local/include , symlinked files from ../Cellar/ and /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include/ as follows;
rwxr-xr-x 1 user admin 48B May 29 2018 unitypes.h -&...
1
vote
3answers
112 views
Symlinked Dotfiles Are Not Working
I'm on macOS Catalina and I'm trying to move all my "dotfiles" into a folder, where I can place them under version control, then symlink them back into the home folder. I've created a hidden "....
0
votes
2answers
25 views
Organizing Favourites in Finder with Symlinks and colons
On my machine I have repeating patterns of directories.
E.g,:
notes/2019-01
records/expenses/2019-01
records/taxes/2019-01
customer/project/notes/2019-01
Links in the Favourites bar show up as:
...
2
votes
2answers
291 views
Copy directory structure and symlink files (alternative to `cp -as`)
I'm looking for how to recursively copy a directory structure and then fill the copy with symlinks to the corresponding files from the source directory. This has a simple solution in Linux in the form ...
0
votes
1answer
28 views
Unexpected behavior of bash script used to sync dotfiles
I'm using essentially this script for keeping my dotfiles under version control. I recently added a snippets folder inside my emacs.d directory and listed it as one of the things that should be ...
0
votes
1answer
65 views
Why is ~/Documents a symlink to itself, and how should this be fixed?
I'm a programmer diagnosing a customer's issue with our software. We're having some problems writing into the user's Documents folder in macOS Mojave 10.14.6.*
It turns out that the customer's ~/...
0
votes
0answers
21 views
Does Spotlight index the contents of symlinks?
From what I can tell, Finder searches do not follow symlinks. Is this expected behavior? I can't find it documented anywhere.
Background:
I've been syncing some PDFs using Dropbox (location A), but ...
7
votes
3answers
7k views
Relocating /Users folder in MacOS 10.15 (Catalina)?
In the past when we wanted to offload the /Users folder from the internal disk we simply created a symbolic link for /Users that pointed to /Volumes/External_Drive_Name/Users. The Mac in question is a ...
2
votes
1answer
119 views
Permission denied for ls -l in a folder with symlinks
I have a folder hierarchy
parent_folder -> inner_folder -> innermost_folder
The steps I followed are (as a sudo user):
created a symlink pointing to parent_folder
set the permissions of the ...
1
vote
1answer
21 views
Turning on FileVault with a symlinked directory
Running Mojave (10.14.6). There's not enough room on my SSD for my Music, Pictures, and Movies. I have those on an external drive. I have not yet turned on FileVault. If I create symlinks for those ...
2
votes
1answer
192 views
On Catalina, what should /private/tmp look like?
This is my /tmp and /private:
# ls -lA /tmp /private/
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root admin 11 Oct 18 18:48 /tmp -> private/tmp
/private/:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 121 root wheel 3872 Oct 21 13:27 etc
drwxr-xr-...
2
votes
2answers
55 views
How to remove symlinks created after a specific date?
Say I did a
ln -s /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include/* /usr/local/include/
Now I regret it. How can I delete all these links? The good news is I created them today, so ...
0
votes
0answers
650 views
ld: library not found for -lSystem
New to Mac. I am going to install a software and running make, returns the error:
$ make
gcc -I/Users/username/softwarename/include -I/opt/local/include/glib-2.0 -I/opt/local/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/...
1
vote
0answers
30 views
After upgrade to 10.15 Cataline /media folder is gone
Previously I had used /media to mount remote filesystems.. after upgrading today I find that the directory is gone and / is read only. Is there a workaround for this? The filesystem I had mounted ...
0
votes
0answers
31 views
Symlink works differently on macOS than in linux
I have recently begun to work with Apple laptops and macOS. I wrote a script that symlinks my files and configs, and it works for my linux laptop.
However, something went wrong in macOS.
I narrowed ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
Sync Desktop now that Dropbox no longer supports symlinks
How can I have my Desktop sync over Dropbox?
Previously, I used symlinks to have Dropbox sync the Desktop and Documents folders while keeping them in their actual locations. Dropbox no longer ...
1
vote
2answers
78 views
How can I change the default Documents and Pictures directories to symlinks?
I have most of my important files under Dropbox, like Pictures and Documents. It would be great if I could set the default Documents and Pictures directories to either point under the respective ...
1
vote
1answer
103 views
Symlinks became files, containing relative paths, within an app bundle, why? How to fix?
I discovered an interesting form of corruption within some application bundles which had been stored on a file server for months and years.
The application bundles were installers for various macOS ...
1
vote
1answer
56 views
How to move Photos Library and associated iPhotos Library to another drive without breaking links?
I wish to move my Photos Library to a secondary drive, both formatted with APFS. I still have the iPhotos Library from where the pictures were imported.
I'm concerned that when moving the Photos and ...
1
vote
0answers
485 views
Network drive in finder sidebar disappears, is there's a way keep them in unmounted state?
I use Automator to mount my network drives on boot by following instructions from this link:
http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/04/automatically-connect-to-network-drive-mac-os-x/
and then drag the drives ...
0
votes
1answer
130 views
Show original shortcut in MacOS 10.14
I often make symbolic links of folders. I recently had to change my laptop and move from Sierra to Mojave.
In the old OS I used to type Cmd + R to go to the original folder. This seems to no longer ...
3
votes
3answers
240 views
Why have symbolic links between files in folders at same depth?
I noticed that in macOS, the /usr/local/Cellar folder contains binaries installed using Homebrew, and that /usr/local/opt has symbolic links to a bunch of those binaries. I haven't used symbolic links ...
2
votes
1answer
3k views
Adding symlink to /usr/bin
I'm trying to add python3 to my path by adding a symlink but it's erroring and I'm not sure why.
/usr/bin $ sudo su
sh-3.2# ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin/python3 /usr/...
2
votes
0answers
777 views
MacOS Mojave: How do I change the default /Users directory for ALL users logging in?
I've seen this question answered in various forms for other iterations of Mac OS X, but Mojave is proving a bit more challenging. In short:
I have several dual drive systems, (SSD and HDD) with the ...
6
votes
1answer
2k views
Best practices to move macOS Mail.app storage to an external drive?
I have a system with fairly small internal storage (500GB) so I have attached a reasonably quick external storage device (256GB) that will be constantly mounted. To free up space on the internal ...
1
vote
0answers
212 views
How to move shared albums data from Photos externally
I recently moved my Photos library to an external SSD. Unfortunately shared album data still lives locally inside ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd/Data/Library/Application Support/com.apple....
-2
votes
1answer
433 views
How to get xcode simulator working after moving Library/Developer to an external harddrive
How do I get device simulator working in xcode after moving the Library/Developer file to an external hard drive and symlinking it. Yes, I've already symlinked the files from Developer.
2
votes
2answers
556 views
How does macOS implement symbolic link in Mojave on FAT32 filesystems?
I remember in the past, not all types of aliases (as in the macOS feature) can be created on all filesystems. This is because symbolic link (as in the type of file) is a special Unix file type, ...
1
vote
1answer
26 views
Create an hardlink across storage device (or alternative solutions)
I have named my secondary SSD with a name with a space in it - "My SSD", and have been using it for many years with multimedia applications without any problem. Part of my media library with thousands ...
2
votes
0answers
69 views
Automator service to create Dropbox symlink
I'm trying to create an Automator service(in the right click menu) that creates a symlink of the folder/file and moves it to the Dropbox folder. This is what I have right now:
while [ $# -ne 0 ]; do
...
1
vote
1answer
1k views
Which filesystems support symbolic links?
I'm copying a big archive of files from a Linux host to an external USB hard drive, that will then plug into a macOS host. The copy should preserve the archive's many symbolic links (ln -s). What ...
3
votes
3answers
323 views
How to work with 2 Applications folders?
I have an internal 250 GB SSD. this drive was filling up and I bought an external 4 TB external hard drive. My Applications folder on my SSD was taking up a lot of space so I decided to create an ...
1
vote
2answers
2k views
Why does my symbolic link not work?
I wrote a small Julia program:
println("Hello world!")
I can run Julia from the Terminal:
$ /Applications/Julia-0.6.app/Contents/Resources/julia/bin/julia test.jl
Hello world!
To make my life ...
1
vote
1answer
115 views
Symlink dotfiles to Documents/Dotfiles
I have a setup script which creates links between my dotfiles repo and the files at the root of my Home directory. Generally speaking, the process looks like this for each file:
ln -s ~/Documents/...
1
vote
0answers
113 views
Symbolic link in High Sierra breaks when the file is modified
I have a file named file.ext. I create an symbolic link to this file named file_symlink.ext in other folder.
When I modify file.ext directly (without opening the file via the symbolic link), the ...
-1
votes
1answer
60 views
Latest file for download
I want to be able to have a generic link to the latest version on of file available for download to make things easier for clients.
Example: http://server.web.net/Adium/Adium-1.5.10.4.pkg
If it could ...
