Moving motion templates folder to external drive (Monterey OS)

How much space? Those are only Motion project files, that take up very little space. You must have literally thousands and thousands of templates, effects, and plugins.

I'm not sure you can move the Motion Templates folder and have FCPX still recognize it. You'd have to move it, then create and Alias, then move the Alias back to the Movie folder. But I'm not sure an alias will work, since the Motion Templates folder is "localized."

Maybe someone else has a solution that reliably works. But again, how big is your Motion Templates folder? How much stuff you have in it?

While I don't recommend doing it, I just tried the following as a test, and it appears to be working. The idea is to replace the existing Motion Templates.localized folder in Movies by a symlink to the folder on the external.

0) Quit FCP if it is running

1) Copy the Motion Templates.localized folder to the external drive, and then delete the original folder

2) Open Terminal

2a) Type the following command and press enter, to change the working directory to your Movies:

cd ~/Movies

2b1) Type "ln -s " WITHOUT the quotes but WITH a trailing space

2b2) Drag the Motion Templates folder from your external and drop it on the Terminal window

2b3) Type a period "." (again, WITHOUT the quotes)

2b4) Press enter

Do not move the motion template folder from its designated location. If it's taking up space, delete old data or apps that are infrequently used.