Symlinks for beginners

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Can someone help explain the process of using symlinks to move folders in the user folder to second HDD for beginners?

i've been looking everywhere to find out how to do this and all tutorials required knowing a bit about commands in terminal, after some searching what various commands meant i felt i understood This tutorial enough to give it a shot.

i thought i'd try it first on my downloads folder, after following the steps instead of it deleting the current and replacing it with the new folder (folder with a small arrow to show it's linked elsewhere i'm assuming?) it created this new folder inside the downloads folder, no idea what has happened? (picture below)

Screen_Shot_2014_06_11_at_21_10_42.png


in the screen shots in the tutorial it shows the user folders had been replaced with a new folder with the little arrow in the bottom left corner, how come when i did it this new folder is in the original downloads folder?

these were the steps i took:

copy downloads folder from SSD to second HDD

entered these into terminal in this order:

cd /users/RobWheeler/Downloads sudo rm -rf Downloads

ln -s /volumes/Data\ Storage/UsersStorage/Downloads


Anyone know whats happened/what to do?

been bugging me for ages working out how to do this!
 

Raz0rEdge

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Assuming your copy of the Downloads folder was OK, use the following commands
Code:
cd ~
rm -rf Downloads
ln -s /Volumes/Data\ Storage/UsersStorage/Downloads Downloads
 
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Assuming your copy of the Downloads folder was OK, use the following commands
Code:
cd ~
rm -rf Downloads
ln -s /Volumes/Data\ Storage/UsersStorage/Downloads Downloads

yeah looked like it copied fine, so if i paste that into terminal it should sort it?
 
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just tried it and it worked perfectly! i don't understand why i couldn't find this out anywhere as that was very easy to do?! most tutorials tried explaining everything rather than putting it simply like this for instance:

step 1: cd ~
step 2: rm -rf (name of folder)
step 3: ln -s (path to new folder, i simply went to the folder in finder, right click-copy, paste in terminal)

done!

in step 2 i had to add sudo in front as it originally said permission denied.

i understand it's risky typing in terminal when you don't understand commands etc. but i don't think you could mess up the above steps!

Thanks for the help/fast response!
 
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I guess I just found the subject matter for my next tutorial. Was wondering what I should write about.
Mac-Forums Blog |Mac-Forums Blog

Funnily enough, I had one on this exact subject ready to go a long time ago, but the blog was being neglected at the time and nothing came of it.

In the meanwhile, allow me to refer the OP to an old post of mine that details an easier way to do all this. Be sure to read the entire thread.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/sw...mac-ssd-iphones-ipads-backup.html#post1234677
 

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