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Help w Symlink

C

cibby

macrumors member
Original poster
May 27, 2005
44
0
I just installed an optibay and am running an SSD/HD setup in my 2011 MBP. I did a clean install of Lion. I found instructions online how to create a Symlink, which I'm trying with my Downloads folder. For some reason after I think I've created it, it doesn't seem to work. In Chrome when I go to download a file I get prompted with a dialog on where to save it rather than I automatically downloading to my Downloads folder. After a couple of tries, Chrome is now crashing anytime I try to download something.

Here is what I did in Terminal

sudo rm -rf ~/Downloads/
(after typing in my password the folder was deleted)

and then

ln -s /Volumes/HD_Bigness/Downloads/ ~/Downloads

This created what looks to be an alias in my home director called "Downloads" but from what I've read this is what it should look like.

Any advice on what I'm doing wrong?

Separate but related question is that when I went to put a shortcut in the finder to the new Downloads folder, the icon in the Favorites section is just a folder, not the standard Download icon. I changed the icon for the folder using Get Info, but it doesn't seem to impact the Finder's smaller icon. Is there a way to fix that?
 
The Finder shows both aliases and symbolic links as aliases, although they are different. When you do an ls in Terminal you can see the difference.
 
Last edited:
cibby said:
I just installed an optibay and am running an SSD/HD setup in my 2011 MBP. I did a clean install of Lion. I found instructions online how to create a Symlink, which I'm trying with my Downloads folder. For some reason after I think I've created it, it doesn't seem to work. In Chrome when I go to download a file I get prompted with a dialog on where to save it rather than I automatically downloading to my Downloads folder. After a couple of tries, Chrome is now crashing anytime I try to download something.

Here is what I did in Terminal

sudo rm -rf ~/Downloads/
(after typing in my password the folder was deleted)

and then

ln -s /Volumes/HD_Bigness/Downloads/ ~/Downloads

This created what looks to be an alias in my home director called "Downloads" but from what I've read this is what it should look like.

Any advice on what I'm doing wrong?

Separate but related question is that when I went to put a shortcut in the finder to the new Downloads folder, the icon in the Favorites section is just a folder, not the standard Download icon. I changed the icon for the folder using Get Info, but it doesn't seem to impact the Finder's smaller icon. Is there a way to fix that?
Click to expand...
I could be having a weird day, but it looks like you are trying to make a symlink to a folder you just deleted.
 
I'm the OP. That's what I'm trying to do but it didn't seem to take. I thought once I created the Symlink that apps trying to access my Downloads folder would actually access the new folder location on my HDD. Does it look like I did it correctly and I just have an unexpected outcome? Is it necessary to reboot or anything like that?
 
cibby said:
I'm the OP. That's what I'm trying to do but it didn't seem to take. I thought once I created the Symlink that apps trying to access my Downloads folder would actually access the new folder location on my HDD. Does it look like I did it correctly and I just have an unexpected outcome? Is it necessary to reboot or anything like that?
Click to expand...

Make sure that there are no permission conflicts on /Volumes/HD_Bigness/Downloads. It could be that the permissions are set such that you are not able to write to /Volumes/HD_Bigness/Downloads. In the terminal app do a "ls -l /Volumes/HD_Bigness" to check the permissions.
 
I think I figured out the issue with your help. I couldn't even run that in Terminal as it kept saying "No such file or directory". I tried changing over to that Volume and could not. I think it's because of the space in the name. I tried it a bunch of different ways "HD Bigness" "HD_Bigness" "HD-Bigness" and nada. So I changed the name to a single word and everything including the symlink is working for me.

I still don't know how to change the small icon for the Downloads folder in the left hand nav of the Finder. I have used Get Info to change the folder's main icon but it seems the Finder left hand nav icon is handled differently. Any workarounds?
 
cibby said:
I think I figured out the issue with your help. I couldn't even run that in Terminal as it kept saying "No such file or directory". I tried changing over to that Volume and could not. I think it's because of the space in the name. I tried it a bunch of different ways "HD Bigness" "HD_Bigness" "HD-Bigness" and nada. So I changed the name to a single word and everything including the symlink is working for me.

I still don't know how to change the small icon for the Downloads folder in the left hand nav of the Finder. I have used Get Info to change the folder's main icon but it seems the Finder left hand nav icon is handled differently. Any workarounds?
Click to expand...

Google the binary "setfileicon". That worked for me.
 
cibby said:
I think I figured out the issue with your help. I couldn't even run that in Terminal as it kept saying "No such file or directory". I tried changing over to that Volume and could not. I think it's because of the space in the name. I tried it a bunch of different ways "HD Bigness" "HD_Bigness" "HD-Bigness" and nada. So I changed the name to a single word and everything including the symlink is working for me.

I still don't know how to change the small icon for the Downloads folder in the left hand nav of the Finder. I have used Get Info to change the folder's main icon but it seems the Finder left hand nav icon is handled differently. Any workarounds?
Click to expand...

If you want to use a use a folder name with a space in it you have to escape the space it with a backslash (\). So for example if I had a directory named This Directory in order to access it from the terminal I would use This\ Directory. I always drag the folder to the terminal and let the OS do the escape on spaces.
 
Thanks Taz, I didn't know you could drag it in there. I changed the HD name to test this and dragged it in... it looked like this /Volumes/HDD\ Bigness

Thank again.

I did some Googling of Setfile and it seems that folks have had success assigning custom side bar icons to FILES that have been pulled there, but not folders (yet). Here's the link to where I found some folks discussing it...
http://macthemes.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16811054
 
cibby said:
Thanks Taz, I didn't know you could drag it in there. I changed the HD name to test this and dragged it in... it looked like this /Volumes/HDD\ Bigness

Thank again.

I did some Googling of Setfile and it seems that folks have had success assigning custom side bar icons to FILES that have been pulled there, but not folders (yet). Here's the link to where I found some folks discussing it...
http://macthemes.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16811054
Click to expand...

Glad I could help. :)
 
still can't get finder sidebar icons to be the right ones any ideas

have symlink to downloads pictures and iTunes on second drive
copied icons to new dirs look ok in finder but not in sidebar
also seems symlink gets icon from dirs on second drive

anyone got the answer
 
gsxrq said:
still can't get finder sidebar icons to be the right ones any ideas

have symlink to downloads pictures and iTunes on second drive
copied icons to new dirs look ok in finder but not in sidebar
also seems symlink gets icon from dirs on second drive

anyone got the answer
Click to expand...

Did you try running setfileicon on the folder you are linking to? You mention the symlink gets icon from dirs on second drive so it might make sense to run setfile icon on the folders on the second drive.

@ OP: Also you might be able to create a symlink to a path containing a space, I think you need a / (or is it a \) before each space. I normally avoid spaces in unix file and path names as they can cause problems so now that you have everything working without a space, that is the better approach. But if you had to have a space for some reason, I think you could make it work.
 
gsxrq said:
still can't get finder sidebar icons to be the right ones any ideas

have symlink to downloads pictures and iTunes on second drive
copied icons to new dirs look ok in finder but not in sidebar
also seems symlink gets icon from dirs on second drive

anyone got the answer
Click to expand...

Try removing the shortcut from sidebar and re-add
 
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