Questions tagged [symlink]
symbolic link, a type of file that is a reference to another file or folder
204
questions
0
votes
0answers
17 views
Cannot read symbolic link
What's special about doing symbolic linking in Mac? I'm getting cannot read symbolic link while doing that:
$ ls -ld /usr/local/opt/openjdk/libexec/openjdk.jdk
drwxr-xr-x 4 me admin 128 2021-03-05 12:...
1
vote
1answer
50 views
Allow symbolic links in SMB file sharing
I symlink directories I want to share into ~/Base/shared. I have enabled File Sharing (via SMB) on this directory, but symlinks are shown just as links and are not followed to their target (you can ...
0
votes
2answers
43 views
macOS Cannot Create Valid Symlink From Terminal Using Relative Paths
Using the following snippet it creates an invalid symlink. But according to other answers it should work fine.
# make a temp dir and save path to var.
# set dir (mktemp -d) # fish shell only!
dir=$(...
0
votes
0answers
12 views
/usr/bin symlink [duplicate]
I was testing a Unix CVE-2021-3156 on my mac, but macs don't have sudoedit. I heard that symlinking /usr/bin/sudoedit to /usr/bin/sudo would cause the same error, but testing that gave this:
ln: /usr/...
0
votes
1answer
36 views
Is there a way to view just symbolic links that I've created?
I've noticed my iCloud storage is full even though I only have roughly ~2GB of data in there. When I view my iCloud storage I notice that both my desktop and my documents seem to be listed twice - ...
0
votes
0answers
26 views
Replace symbolic links to libraries in executable with full path
Because I use homebrew to manage my packages but I compile ffmpeg by myself (I need to enable some components that is not included in the homebrew build), when homebrew upgrades one of its formulas ...
1
vote
0answers
29 views
Fixing symlinked /Users directory
I had my previous Mac Mini configured where /Users was a link to a separate volume on my dual disk system. I tried upgrading to Catalina on that machine and discovered that this link caused the ...
0
votes
0answers
94 views
What's the difference between `/usr/local/bin/` and `/usr/local/opt/` on macOS?
I found that homebrew will create symbolic link from both /usr/local/bin/ and /usr/local/opt/ to /usr/local/Cellar/xxx/xx.xx/xx after installing a software, what's the difference between /usr/local/...
0
votes
1answer
72 views
What casues macOS sidebar to drop “favorites” (shortcuts to linked files/directories), other than macOS updates? How to prevent?
Every month or so my Macs drops all the favorites I have in the Finder windows (which also appear in Save/Open system dialogue windows). I takes time to redo them, and it is frustrating.
I know that ...
0
votes
0answers
14 views
How do I publish symlinks as regular files over SMB3? [duplicate]
I have this file that's dropped in a Mac via rsync, then Windows fetches it but it needs it to be named differently according to use, so the obvious answer, I thought, was to symlink it into all of ...
1
vote
1answer
54 views
hardlinks: does “original” mean anything?
man rdfind discusses the rules to decide which file is the original when it finds a duplicate.
When all the others are hard links to the "original," does that really mean anything? I ...
0
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0answers
22 views
How to create device file symlink
ok - bit convoluted, but I'm creating a tool that emulates a GPS device. Combination of C code and a tool called SOCAT. SOCAT reads a udp port and passes the data to my C Code which decodes the data ...
1
vote
1answer
34 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
64 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
33 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
29 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
50 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
17 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
76 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 ...
1
vote
0answers
213 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
143 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
100 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
90 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
45 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
179 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 ...
1
vote
3answers
177 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
30 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
726 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
31 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
94 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 ~/...
11
votes
4answers
13k 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
286 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
24 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
294 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
63 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 ...
1
vote
0answers
1k 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
31 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 ...
5
votes
2answers
3k 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
217 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
187 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
72 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
817 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
161 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
277 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
5k 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
820 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
4k 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
231 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
628 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
609 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, ...
