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What happens to libraries and caches related to that app?
Sadly, Apple has worked hard to make anything but their scam-priced, non-replaceable, non-repairable, non-upgradable internal drives a terrible experience that just works much worse and isn't easy to set up.
 
You can also store all your music and photos on an external drive, just open the app and hold the option key and select the library from the external drive. :p
There may be other ways to store files on the external as well, using hard links from the terminal and possibly encrypting your home folder which will create one large image and then moving your Home folder to the external drive.

What I would like to see is Apple incorporate an advanced option under setting up a user where you can specify automatically everything of your home folder including libraries which use a large portion of my disk.

Ultimately if you could move the user data volume on APFS to an external one then everything would be stored externally except the operating system.
I know people have attempted to do this but it seems to give some agita if the external drive is not ready but Apple could build in a waiting period at the login screen when the external drive is ready.
 
I had an M1 iMac and concluded that it was absolutely impossible to use Xcode on a Mac with 256 GB, exactly because of that and all the temporary files it would create. You have no idea what workarounds I use to put all my stuff on an external storage, and honestly, it just wasn't possible. The M1 iMac was sufficient for Xcode, even with 8GB, but the SSD storage I had made it absolutely impossible.

Maybe this would fix the issue.

Maybe not, the actual Xcode application is negligible compared with all the other stuff that Xcode creates
 
Maybe not, the actual Xcode application is negligible compared with all the other stuff that Xcode creates
It's still 12 GB, but I think you may be right. It depends if the junk it creates is still located on the internal drive or not. I think this won't change, sadly...
 
Someone needs to search their operating system to see if there is a defaults file that can be written to the user data folder that can override the one gigabyte store limit and set it to one megabyte. :rolleyes:
 
A tiny step in the right direction. I don't know why it had to be this limited.

This is an absolute requirement to even begin to be taken seriously for games. Steam has had very flexible support for multiple libraries on multiple disks in whatever subfolder you choose, for like ten years.
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Why would anyone need this? It's always been possible to have your apps on a separate drive. Just drag them over. LaunchServices will detect the apps in their new location and they'll just work. It's one of the best things about the Mac, and it's been that way basically since the beginning.
From my understanding you can move apps purchased/downloaded from the App Store, but it won't update them anymore. This "fixes" that issue.
 
I see the problem arising, say you use this new feature but then you need to make a backup of your system, how will the external storage factor into a backup then? I suppose I need to research this a bit...
 
I even tried downloading it from Apple Developer's website.
I can put it wherever I want, on my external drive for example, but my internal drive quickly became saturated with all those derived data and all the junk stuff Xcode generates.
This probably won't change ? I don't know. I'd have to test it.

I really felt pushed against the wall - I needed to pay Apple for all the extra storage. 500 CAD to go from 256GB to 1TB. Meanwhile, I can buy a 4 TB Samsung 990 Pro for 400 CAD when it's on special. I'm OK with Apple making an additional profit over upgrades, but at this point, I mean, they're truly robbing us.
Would be nice if Apple adopted Linux’s overlayFS but the not invented here syndrome is high at Apple.
 
Now if I could do this with photos that would be a dream come true; I got one of those hidden to the case sd cards to the side of the MacBook so would be nice to have room on my MacBook for other storage and keep backed up photos and videos on the SD card
 
This is a moot point for me as I’ve been booting off external drives for decades. All my apps, data, and OS on massive cheap external bus-powered Thunderbolt SSDs. I move them between Macs and get my desktop wherever I go on any Mac. I get the smallest internal SSD when configuring a new machine since I never use it.
 
Why would anyone need this? It's always been possible to have your apps on a separate drive. Just drag them over. LaunchServices will detect the apps in their new location and they'll just work. It's one of the best things about the Mac, and it's been that way basically since the beginning.
As far as I know, it wasn't possible to move the apps from Apple to an external drive. It only worked with 3rd party apps.

Previously, even if you moved your home directory and Applications folder to an external drive, your Apple apps lived in the internal drive, and you would need aliases for them in your Applications folder to see all in one place.
 
How well does the drive stay connected when the Mac idles/sleeps? Sometimes the biggest challenge to this approach is that the drive occasionally gets unmounted by the OS for some unknown reason, and then you have trouble until a reboot.
I think there is a setting to prevent the drives from sleeping.
I don’t really sleep the mac.
I usually turn it off when I don’t use it.
 
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Now if I could do this with photos that would be a dream come true; I got one of those hidden to the case sd cards to the side of the MacBook so would be nice to have room on my MacBook for other storage and keep backed up photos and videos on the SD card
You've been able to relocate the photos, iTunes etc libraries since way back.

For photos, just close the app, move the photos folder, restart, and tell photos where your library now lives.
 
To everyone asking why this is a new thing, although apps can already be stored on external drives they can't be updated via MAS. This feature is very welcome for large games. Previously MAS couldn't see the apps moved to external storage and presented them as uninstalled so you had to move the app back to the internal drive to update them. My Resident Evil 4 even stopped working and wouldn't launch from the external drive before this.
 
I'd find it a lot more useful to be able to put my Photos library on an external disk, and be able to have it synchronize with iCloud, which it will not do currently.
 
I’m sure the “Apple is evil” crowd will come up with entertaining conspiracy theories. Or they will ignore this.
Sadly, we were beaten to the punch by the loyal Apple White Knights.


This is absolutely ridiculous that on 2024 we have to resort to such action just because Apple infinite greed and immense show of respect and love for their prisoners...
 
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