How to move stuff to ext HD

Hi folks. Though I've had my mini for a long time, I'm no programmer so talk to me like I'm in kindergarten

I want to move my photos (not using iPhoto), documents, music, videos and kindle books off main HD onto my ext HD. I have 1 HD to hold such data and a larger one acting as Time Machine. As you see by my sig, I'm running OS 10.6.8

spazzdog, did you mean you want to move things, and you are NOT currently using iPhoto, or that you want to move things and are using iPhoto, but you don't want to use iPhoto to move them? Your statement can be read either way. Same for music, videos and books. Moving them is dead easy, but if you applications that are keeping a library (iTunes, Kindle, iPhoto) then you'll need to make sure those applications update their library to point to the new location.

Hi and thanks for the reply.

I meant the actual photo, video, documents folders that are within the Home folder. I don't use iPhoto on my mini (photoshop instead) and my docs are a combo of word docs, scrivener docs and PDFs. I wasn't sure if I could just drag those folders over to the ext HD without causing issues with the Home folder. The kindle books update when I sync my iPad and I'd like those to be on the ext HD as well. On the iTunes front, I just have movies. It'd be grand if those could go to the ext HD as well.

Again, thanks for the assist.

OK, a couple of things. First, all you have to do to move the files is drag and drop. That copies them to the external. Then you can come back after that is successful (and you test it) an then select/delete/empty trash and voila! Done!

However, that doesn't sort out a couple of things. Apps like Photoshop, Scrivener, Kindle and iTunes track where the files were the last time you opened them and won't know they've been moved unless you do something. If you decide to move ALL the music/movies/whatever in iTunes to the external, for example, do the copy of the folder (You'll find the folder to move in iTunes/Preferences/Advanced in the window labelled "iTunes Medias folder location.) and then come back to that same location in iTunes and click the Change button and enter the new location. Note that if iTunes starts and the external drive isn't there it will default to the original default location, but will show nothing there. You'll need to repoint iTunes to the location when the external reappears.

In Kindle under Preferences is a section "Content Folder" that points to where Kindle looks for the books. Again copy it, come to Kindle and change it. Test it and then delete the original folder. I don't know what Kindle will do when the external isn't there, but I suspect you'll get some error message, or an empty library.

Scrivener is a bit more tricky. I'm not sure where Scrivener puts files as a default. The files can go almost anywhere you want. I opened the Preferences in Scrivener and didn't see a default location anywhere. When I open Scrivener, the last project I had open comes up, so I suspect if I moved that to someplace Scrivener didn't know, it would complain and either make me show where it is or open a blank document. I didn't try to see which, but either would be relatively painless to sort out.

Ditto for Word. Ditto for PS.

So basically you can move the files and make the adjustments and off you go.