Why is an alias 1MB?

[cutcopypaste]

Don't generally make aliases, but I'm doing some sorting and cross referencing on my harddrive and I noticed with detail view open that aliases I make to folders are all 1mb in size (~1038179 bytes with very limited variability). An alias is a link to another place on the harddrive, right? What possibly could be taking up that much space? and is this normal?

 

[mac2x]

4 KB for me.

 

[NJuul]

I bet you it is a bug in Finder showing a wrong file size. Is it by any chance on a networked drive?
I've noticed the same thing when I use samba sharing to connect to networked storage. For some reason, the minimum file size shown by finder is 1 MB, but the actual file size is maybe a few kb in most cases. If you want to be sure that your aliases aren't really 1 MB in size, try to use terminal to check it.

 

[claidheamdanns]

I'm getting the same thing. And yes, it is an alias to a folder on a Network Drive on a PC Server.

How do I use Terminal to check the real size of the alias (on my Mac)?

 

[belvdr]

I'm getting the same thing. And yes, it is an alias to a folder on a Network Drive on a PC Server.

How do I use Terminal to check the real size of the alias (on my Mac)?

du -sk /path/to/alias

will give you the size in KB.