kband: Move the Loops Library to Another Drive
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Mark
Apple Support
Is it possible to move the loops library to another drive. I have plenty of space on another drive that would be perfect storing the loops.
Hope someone can suggest ..
Thanks
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ok, after having to intall twice, i got it to work.
1. install the full garageband to your startup drive.
2. start garage band and make sure it is working
3. then go to library/application support/garageband and move your instrument library folder to another partition or drive.
4. place the original folder in the trash and startup garage band - it will tell you that the instruments are missing and to locate the folder - navigate to the folder and select it - you just got 700mb off your startup drive
5. close garage band and copy your apple loops folder to your other drive
6. place the original loops folder in the trash
7. here's the part that messed me up at first - you can't make a normal alias to the file - you need to make a symbolic link - the easiest way to do that is to download "symbolic link maker" at http://seiryu.home.comcast.net/symboliclinker.html - this is a contextual menu plugin that you have to install
8. after you install that and log back in, right click your new apple loops folder and choose "make symbolic link"
9. move that link to the library/application support/garagband folder and name it "Apple Loops"
10. open garabe band back up and voila - it should work
notes: the most important thing is not to mess with the "Apple Loops Index" folder - this points to all of the loops and should stay in the library/application support/garageband folder. it's a small file.
doing this will allow you to get about 2 gigs off your startup drive.
good luck!
Orion,
I have been looking all over for someone who had done this. Thanks for posting! I will test it out.
well I tried it.... can't say it worked. It should in theory, but the sym link was kinda flaky with permissions. I eneded up creating a symlink then reinstalling.... and then it worked!...
Like you siad instruments are easy to move... Loops are hard.
Thanks for all the help.
I went further than that. I just went to /Library/Application Support/ and moved the ENTIRE GarageBand folder to another drive, deleted the original, and created a symbolic link to the new location. Worked like a charm.
do you think it's possible to do that but skipping Step 1 ("install the full garageband to your startup drive") ?
Since I didn't want to completely fill my startup partition (I currently have only 2gb free...), I extracted the "GarageBand" folder (the one that should be placed in /Library/Application Support) with Pacifist (charlessoft.com) to another volume. The main app, the midi drivers and the documentation are correctly installed on my startup volume. Then I did those symbolic links.
Now everything works, but when I click the "eye icon" I get the following message:
There are no Apple Loops installed on your System. Please reinstall the Apple Loop Package..
That's weird, since the "Instrument Library" has been successfully found.....any ideas?
Well, it works like a charm:
1) Copied GB folder to different drive.
2) Deleted original GB folder.
3) Made symbolic link, and called it GarageBand, and place it in the original folders location.
4) Fired up GB, and it works.
5) It works so well, that I installed the additional loops pack and it installed without a problem to the "full GB folder on my other non-system drive.
DiGriz, I liked yours the best. Simplest. But I would credit the original author to getting us this far!
I moved GarageBand and iDVD off of my system partition onto my documents partition. And I'm loving it!
I'm new to the Mac World and do not know how to create a symbolic link.
Can you please help me?
- Start the terminal application
- cd <to-the-folder-you-want-the-link-to-und-up-in>
- ln -s <target> <linkname>
If the link should be named the same as the target just leave out the second parameter.
BTW "man ln" will tell you about the command.
For those like me who are really not familiar with doing things in terminal here is a link to description of how to do this.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040117222032141