How To Move Your Documents Folder
I upgraded my MacBook Pro with a solid-state drive for speed, but it’s too small to hold all of my files. I know how to move music and photo folders to an external drive, but how do I move my Documents folder? I created a Documents folder on an external drive, but no matter what, the system defaults back to using my Documents folder residing in my home directory on the startup drive. Is there anything I can do to fix this?
You can very easily move your Documents folder to an external drive and then create what is known as a “symbolic link” to the external drive’s Documents folder in your home folder. The symbolic link is a feature of Unix, which is what Mac OS X is based upon. A symbolic link creates a hard link to another file location, which will allow you to move your Documents folder without changing how OS X works. The easiest way to create a symbolic link is with an application called SymbolicLinker (bit.ly/ml_symbolic).
After installing SymbolicLinker, copy your current Documents folder to your external drive. In the Finder, right-click on the folder on the external drive and select Services > Make Symbolic Link. A symbolic link will appear, called “Documents symlink.” Next, rename the old Documents folder on your Mac, and then drag your new symbolic link into your home folder, renaming it “Documents.” From then on, OS X will save everything to your external Documents folder. Once you’re comfortable that everything is working as it should, you can delete the old renamed Documents folder on your Mac to conserve space.
SymbolicLinker adds a Make Symbolic Link option.
Be careful, though. If you use this setup on a portable Mac, you probably won’t have the external drive connected all the time. If you try to access your Documents folder without the external drive attached, you’ll get an error message. And keep in mind that many applications are set to write to the Documents folder by default, so you could wind up encountering errors inadvertently, which could cause bigger problems.
If you can’t manage to work with the space you have, explore online document-storage options. We would recommend using a service like Google Docs, Amazon’s Cloud Storage, or the Documents in the Cloud feature of upcoming iCloud to store your data. Alternatively, a network attached storage (NAS) drive with web-based interfaces will allow you to access files from a drive on your home network from anywhere you can get a Wi-Fi signal.
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