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Change Target Location of Home Folders

N

Neo-Tech

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 19, 2009
126
3
Hello,

On Windows it's possible to change where the Music, Pictures etc folders are located. I've tried doing this to the folders on my Mac (Music, Pictures etc) and I can't find anything! I've checked on Google and I'm blank, lol.

Neo-Tech
 
That's a shame, really is a shame. As I'm going to have to make several backups for each folder. Thanks alot Apple :mad:

So much for ease of use...
 
Sorry for bumping such an old thread, but aliases won't work for me :(
Is there anything new in Snow Leopard that allows me to do this?
 
It seems you can delete folders like Movies etc. Now I wonder if it's possible to rename them to something else and then getting ChronoSync to sync them both ways :D
 
What exactly are you trying to do? Of course you can move or rename any folder in your home folder. So I'm guessing you are trying to do something that is making it more complicated, but I can't figure out what from your post.
 
I'm trying to change where the Music folder is located but make it stay in the same place. So for example, point my Music folder to my external hard disk but I can still access it from my Home folder.
 
I do this. My example is, my iTunes content is way too big for my internal drive on my older iMac. So I redirect my ~/Music directory to an external USB drive with a symbolic link, (think of it as a static shortcut that even the system honors).

Is that similar to your goal?
 
Here is a quick & dirty summary of the way I do it, using the ~/Music folder as the example.

1) Backup, backup, and backup whatever data is in question, as a safeguard.

2) Install and format the external disk, (preferable as 'OS X Extended (Journaled)' For this example, label it 'USB'.

3) On the newly created USB volume, create a subdirectory called 'Music'.

4) Move everything from ~/Music, (the Music sub-directory in your home folder), to the new 'Music' folder on your new USB volume. When satisfied everything copied OK, delete everything in ~/Music, (the Music sub-directory in your home folder).

5) Open Terminal and type: sudo rm -rf /Users/yourname/Music

6) Then type this in Terminal: ln -s "Volumes/USB/Music" "Users/yourname/Music"

Then open your home folder in the Finder. You should see what will look similar to a Windows shortcut for the Music folder, (a folder with an arrow at the bottom of the icon). While that resides in your home directory, when you open it, it should redirect you to the 'Music' folder on your external USB drive, (or whatever alternate location you chose).

A symbolic link (aka symlink) like this is a great solution because you do it once, with no need to change anything in iTunes. Say you buy a new song, it will download to ~/Music, but really follow the symlink and go to your USB drive.

I have done this 50 times, so I know it works, provided I understood your goal correctly!
 
No need for the terminal and symbolic links. After you have copied the Music folder to your external hard drive. Simply change the library location in the Advanced tab in iTunes Preferences.
 
Thanks Mark! =)

Just what I want I think. I don't think I'll need it now since I hardly use my PC, lol, no surprise there. But thanks anyway, greatly appreciated.
 
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