Is there a way to do this? External HD question

[d wade]

I have my general settings to download to the regular folder 'downloads'

however, when i plug my external hardrive in, i would like it to automatically change the destination folder to a folder on that drive.

then when ejected, have it go back to the default folder on my internal hardive, 'downloads'

there's gotta be a way to do this, right? can't seem to figure it out. any help is much appreciated!

 

[robbieduncan]

There is no built in way of doing anything like that. You could write a program to detect drive attach/detach system notifications and then run a piece of AppleScript to modify the downloads folder location...

 

[d wade]

i would have no idea how to do that.

how would i go about learning to write a script like that... or having someone write one for me?

 

[robbieduncan]

It wouldn't be a script, it would have to be a full-blown app running all the time in the background monitoring the system events. You'd probably also need some sort of front-end app to allow for configuration.

How to write it? Learn C, then Objective-C and Cocoa...

 

[skuzzy]

Google is your friend.

 

[JesterJJZ]

What about having the downloads folder sync to the drive when you plug it in?

 

[CashGap]

I think that the folder action included with Leopard "add - new item alert.scpt" could be modified to move files from the internal drive download folder to the external drive download folder automatically when the external drive is present. CLOSE to what you want.

That being said... I don't immediately know how to make the modification and I don't have time at the moment to figure it out, but maybe this will give you a jumpstart.

 

[d wade]

Google is your friend.

why post if you have nothing constructive to add? these forums are for helping people, not posting useless spam.

 

[askywalker]

another alternative

I've only been a mac user for 4 months, so might be out to lunch on this, but can't you just set the download folder to your external drive? That is what I do with firefox. If the drive isn't connected, it downloads to my desktop.. no biggie - i just move it when I am connected...
i guess it depends how often you have your drive connected.

 

[cleo]

Have you tried exploring Hazel? I'm fairly new to it, so I'm not 100% sure if it would do what you need, but it seems extremely powerful.