Transfer Aliases to Thumb Drive?

[Daddio53]

I have on my iMac a bunch of audio files, with a bunch of aliases to these files.

I want to transfer all of these audio files and aliases to a thumb drive, so that the aliases transferred to the thumb drive link to the audio files I transferred to the thumb drive, not the audio files back on my iMac.

Can't seem to find a way to make this work. Help?

Thanks!

 

[Dave Braine]

Transfer the audio files only, then make new Aliases. It doesn't matter where you put your original Aliases, they are linked to a file on your Mac, so will always want to open that file.

However, having a file and its Alias on the thumb drive seems a bit pointless. You've got to open the thumb drive's Finder window to click on the Alias, so why not click on the file itself? You could drag those Aliases back to your Mac, that way you could click on the Alias and open the file on the thumb drive without having to open the thumb drive's Finder window.

 

[Daddio53]

Good questions! So here's the deal. I want to send thumb drives to potential clients. This drive will have thousands of music files on it, all in one folder. BUT, I've also created additional descriptive folders, all with aliases. So for instance, Music File #1 may be also listed in the "Rock" Folder, and the "High Energy" folder. This way, the client can open a descriptive folder (say, "Rock"), look at the list, click on a Music File alias, and listen. Just the music files are 46 gig, and if I were to copy them into each descriptive folder (instead of just the alias), I'd probably have 200 gig of info. Make any sense?

 

[NoBoMac]

Something to try, but will require doing via Terminal:

Copy over the music into a folder (say "All Music"). In your descriptive folders, you will want to create a symbolic link in Terminal:

cd /Volumes/MyFlashDrive/DescriptiveFolder
ln -s  '../All Music/nameofsong.mp3' DescriptiveName

That MIGHT work as the pathnames are relative. HOWEVER, probably not portable as it's a very *nix/OSX thing. Ie. probably will not work for a Windows user.

 

[Daddio53]

I'm looking to copy these Thousands of files (audio files and aliases) and dozens of folders with aliases onto many thumb drives to send to clients. My goal is to have the aliases on the drive automatically look for the actual file on the drive.

If I understood you, I'd need to write this code for each alias? Not practical because of the huge numbers of files...

 

[DeltaMac]

I suspect that many of your clients will not be using Macs, and using aliases would not be a good plan (won't work at all, or won't work properly from Windows)
You will need to use some kind of file link that will work both on Windows and Macs.
You may even need to create separate thumb drives for both Windows and Macs.
There is probably another way to do what you want. Aliases are not likely your best choice here.

 

[Daddio53]

I suspect that many of your clients will not be using Macs, and using aliases would not be a good plan (won't work at all, or won't work properly from Windows)
You will need to use some kind of file link that will work both on Windows and Macs.
You may even need to create separate thumb drives for both Windows and Macs.
There is probably another way to do what you want. Aliases are not likely your best choice here.

[doublepost=1520116579][/doublepost]Forgive my ignorance (again), but won't clients be able to listen to WAV or AIFF files on the thumb drive, regardless of what computer they're on? I suppose I could create separate thumb drives for Macs and Windows. Didn't think that was necessary...

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, the audio files would work.
The difference will be in your proposed selection method. Aliases just won't work in Windows, for example

 

[Longkeg]

Mac used aliases. Windows Uses shortcuts. Two different types of files that do essentially the same thing but they don’t translate from one system to the other. To do what you describe in a “system agnostic” way you might consider making your links in some type of html coding that is accessed by a browser. Basically making web page where all your elements are contained on the thumb drive... no internet required. You could make it as basic or as glitzy as you want.

Edit: could probably do it as a PowerPoint too.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

Mac used aliases. Windows Uses shortcuts. Two different types of files that do essentially the same thing but they don’t translate from one system to the other. To do what you describe in a “system agnostic” way you might consider making your links in some type of html coding that is accessed by a browser. Basically making web page where all your elements are contained on the thumb drive... no internet required. You could make it as basic or as glitzy as you want.

Edit: could probably do it as a PowerPoint too.

Genius

 

[NoBoMac]

Edit: could probably do it as a PowerPoint too.

Or a PDF with embedded links could work as well.

But as mentioned, genius. Been a long time since I last saw an example of the html method, totally forgot that option was possible.

 

[Dave Braine]

I'm looking to copy these Thousands of files (audio files and aliases) and dozens of folders with aliases onto many thumb drives to send to clients. My goal is to have the aliases on the drive automatically look for the actual file on the drive.

As said above, Mac Aliases won't work on Windows machine. Even so, to send to a Mac user you would have to put the files onto the thumbdrive(can you even get 46Gb thumbdrives? Aren't the just an external drive?), and then create your Aliases on that drive.

 

[DeltaMac]

As said above, Mac Aliases won't work on Windows machine. Even so, to send to a Mac user you would have to put the files onto the thumbdrive(can you even get 46Gb thumbdrives? Aren't the just an external drive?), and then create your Aliases on that drive.

Never saw a "46Gb thumb drive", but 64 GB thumb drives are quite common, 128 GB also easy (about $31 on the shelf at my local Walmart!) Also 256GB, and maybe larger, at most any store that sells computer storage.

 

[Dave Braine]

OK. Didn't know they went that big.