Good idea? . . . Moving the Apple Mail folder to your data volume

[Luba]

Read the below quote from Mac Performance Guide. Is it a good idea? I know a bit of DOS, so I am used to command line commands but even after after Lloyd Chambers explanation, still not sure what is going to happen?

ln -s /Volumes/Master/Mail Library/Mail

The reason I want to move my Mail folder out of the home directory is because I plan to have a SSD as my boot drive and the home directory is on the boot drive, correct?

"Moving the Apple Mail folder to your data volume
This trick lets you move your Mail folder out of your home directory onto your data volume. I’ve used this technique for years so that I can forget about having to back up my home directory (default location for Apple Mail) and simply back up my one data volume: Master. The same trick can be used for any similarly irritating program that insists on storing its data in your home directory, rather than giving you a choice (a few programs are too brain-dead for this to work). Programs like iTunes let you choose where to put your music; use that option.

Your Apple Mail folder is in the Library folder of your home directory.

The trick requires starting Terminal. If that makes you uncomfortable, stop here! You are going to make a symbolic link.

0. Quit Apple Mail, and make a backup of your mail folder.
1. Copy the Mail folder to the top level of your data drive (or elsewhere, then modify step 3 appropriately).
2. Rename the original mail folder to Mail.old as an additional backup.
3. Start a Terminal window and type:

ln -s /Volumes/Master/Mail Library/Mail

This makes a symbolic link to the folder Mail on the volume Master (type the name of your volume, and use quotes around it if the volume name contains a space character). The resulting file Library/Mail is a tiny file that says “look over there on /Volumes/Master/Mail instead”.

From here on out Apple Mail won’t know the difference! Launch Apple Mail and verify that it worked. If you encounter problems, simply copy your backup back into place."

 

[Tesselator]

Uuuhhh... Why? How big is your mail folder?

Mine from Nov. 2006 to date is only 1.5 GB. and I'm receiving mail the whole time from some VERY active mailing lists. About 15 all together - 2 of which have been generating between 20 and 100 messages a day steadily.

For work I do move large attachments out as soon as the project finishes so I guess that's a factor. But only 1.5 GB in almost 3 years? You really need to move your mail folder?

Mine is here BTW: /Users/tess/Library/Mail

 

[Luba]

Moving as a better backup system via Lloyd Chambers idea. Also since I'll using a SSD as boot drive I don't want it to write as often. I hear a SSD slows down the more it writes. So I guess 2 reasons to move it.

 

[tamvly]

Why not move your entire user directory instead (assuming you have at least two disks)? I did this a long time ago and noticed a nice improvement in performance. Also more convenient as I clone a copy of the user directory to another smaller disk very quickly.

 

[hehejames]

Moving as a better backup system via Lloyd Chambers idea. Also since I'll using a SSD as boot drive I don't want it to write as often. I hear a SSD slows down the more it writes. So I guess 2 reasons to move it.

I do not think Apple Mail will benefit from what you are trying to accomplish. Please remember your Apple Mail is not stored on a single DB like Entourage, but it's just bunch of small individual files; ofcourse it's indexed, but I just can't see a performance gain.

 

[hehejames]

Why not move your entire user directory instead (assuming you have at least two disks)? I did this a long time ago and noticed a nice improvement in performance. Also more convenient as I clone a copy of the user directory to another smaller disk very quickly.

Yup. As mentioned by tamvly why not just move the entire home directory? That makes more sense to me.

 

[Tesselator]

Me too.

Also if you want to setup easy backup of just the mail folder then just add a schedule entry in your BU software that points to: /Users/you're_name/Library/Mail and that's that.

I don't think SSDs get slower the more it writes. That doesn't seem to make any sense with how the technology works. The only advantage I can see to moving it is to save space on the tiny little SSDs so you can actually fit your OS on it. And in that case I agree with just moving the entire home folder.

 

[dubaimac]

Excuse my ignorance, but how does one move the "home directory" this would benefit me, my apps will be on my SSD raid, and then I have a caviar black raid.

thanks in advance

 

[Icaras]

Excuse my ignorance, but how does one move the "home directory" this would benefit me, my apps will be on my SSD raid, and then I have a caviar black raid.

thanks in advance

What he just asked.

 

[Tesselator]

It's pretty easy:

1. Copy the current home to your new location by using the terminal command:
   sudo ditto -rsrc "/Users/username" "/Volumes/Full_Path_To_New_Location"
   This will perfectly clone everything!
   And if you're in 10.5 you don't need the "-rsrc" but it won't hurt - either way...
   
2. Open the Accounts Prefs pane,
   
3. Hold down the control key and click on your user name, select Advanced Options,
   
4. Click the Choose button for the Home Directory field, and navigate to the new location,
   
5. Click OK, etc. and close prefs.
   
6. Restart, and make sure it worked,
   
7. Delete the old Home Folder.
   
   Done.

You can also move the Users folder too but that's a bit different. Let me know if you wanna know how to do that and I'll step it for ya too.



.

 

[dubaimac]

Thank you very much indeed, I will do this tonight, if you think there is a benefit to moving users, save space on ssd etc, then please do step it out for me, I have 2 80gb G2 intel SSD raid 0 for the system, and then going to put everything else on the 2 black 1TB raid 0.

Thanks again, you are a superstar.

 

[Tesselator]

Thank you very much indeed, I will do this tonight, if you think there is a benefit to moving users, save space on ssd etc, then please do step it out for me, I have 2 80gb G2 intel SSD raid 0 for the system, and then going to put everything else on the 2 black 1TB raid 0.

Thanks again, you are a superstar.

How many users are there, and how big are the folders? On my system there's only one actual user and the home folder is about 150 gigs. And that's with all the music, sounds, and photos kept in separate folders already. So if you have a few like that or plan to make some then moving the Users folder would be better then just the home folder of one user. If there's only you using one large account then you don't need to.