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creating a symbolic link from 'Movies' folder to another folder?

cb911

cb911

macrumors 601
Original poster
hi,

i'm just trying to make a symlink from the Movies folder (~/Movies) to my own 'movies' folder on a different partition (Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies).

i'm trying to find out how to do this... i tried
Code: 
ln -s /Users/mugget/Movies /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies
and it seemed to have done it, but i can't see any difference when i try and open either folder?

i want the Movies folder to open the MyMovies folder when i click it from the sidebar in Finder, and also the same thing to happen for the Documents folder...

if anyone knows how to do this, i'd really appreciate the help. 🙂 thanks.
 
Do an ls -l on /Users/mugget

A link has an l in the permissions. Note that you cannot normally create a link that has the same name as an existing file of folder: you need to remove the existing file first.
 
This:
Code: 
ln -s /Users/mugget/Movies /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies
will cause both links to open the /Users/mugget/Movies folder.

You need to:
  1. rm the existing /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies link
  2. create /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies as an actual folder with the same permissions as /Users/mugget/Movies
  3. transfer all of your files from /Users/mugget/Movies to your new folder
  4. Trash the /Users/mugget/Movies folder (and empty trash)
  5. use the following command to make a new link:
Code: 
ln -s /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies /Users/mugget/Movies
That should provide the functionality you want.

EDIT: On second thought, I guess it would be much easier to simply:
  1. rm the existing /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies link
  2. move /Users/mugget/Movies to /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies
  3. use the following command to make a new link:
Code: 
ln -s /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies /Users/mugget/Movies
 
thanks szark. 🙂

i just tried
Code: 
ln -s /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies /Users/mugget/Movies
and it looks like it just created an alias in the Movies folder, but it did work to take me to the MyMovies folder.

but i didn't follow your instructions exactly to the letter...

i did
1. rm the existing /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies link
Click to expand...

but i wasn't sure about
2. move /Users/mugget/Movies to /Volumes/Doc_o/MyMovies
Click to expand...
do you mean move the Movies folder inside the MyMovies folder? or replace the MyMovies folder with the Movies folder?

thanks for you help on this. 🙂
 
cb911 said:
do you mean move the Movies folder inside the MyMovies folder? or replace the MyMovies folder with the Movies folder?
Click to expand...

Replace the MyMovies folder with the Movies folder.

Basically, you want to have your files in the MyMovies folder, and have /Users/mugget/Movies be a link to that folder, instead of being an actual folder.
 
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