How to Email a link to a file on a shared drive?

Question

How to Email a link to a file on a shared drive?

Can anyone suggest a method of sending a link to a shared file on an internal network?

I use a Snow Leopard Mini to share files within a local network between a couple of Snow Leopard machines. The Mini is connected using AFP to all of the other Snow Leopard machines.

Several users collaborate on updates to a single document on the Mini and when one user wishes to have the document reviewed, they desire to send an email containing a link to the file (not the actual file) so the other users may review the updates. Sending a copy of the file is not practical since it makes version control too difficult.

Is there some method of doing this - perhaps from finder?

Thanks

MacPro Dual Quad 2.8, MacBookPro17, Mini, Ipod Touch, iPod Clasic, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Jan 3, 2010 9:07 AM

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Answer 1

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jan 3, 2010 10:16 AM in response to Community User

in general you simply put a path to the file win question in an email like this
afp://servername.local/myshare/files.doc
and it will be converted into a clickable link on the receiving end. this can be automated with applescript so you don't have to type the path by hand. however, there is a bug in 10.6 Mail/afp in so that if you do click on such a link in Mail on a 10.6 machine it will only work if the link is to a directory but it won't work if it's a link to a file. 10.5 and earlier does not have this problem. see these two links where the issue is discussed. the first link also has an applescript to automate this
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10605549#10605549
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10605021

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Answer 2

Jan 3, 2010 10:28 AM in response to Community User

Can't you just mail an alias as an attachment? Not sure if that still works, it did with OS 9.

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Answer 3

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jan 3, 2010 10:47 AM in response to Dave Calderbank

Dave Calderbank wrote:
Can't you just mail an alias as an attachment?

that will just attach the actual file not the alias. however, zipping an alias first and sending the zipped file does work. that's a workaround of sorts i guess.

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Answer 4

Jan 3, 2010 11:01 AM in response to Dave Calderbank

No - I tried that. Every time I drag the alias to the email, it takes the actual file not the alias.

Thanks anyway.

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Answer 5

Jan 3, 2010 11:21 AM in response to Community User

Maybe this can help:

http://www.macworld.com/article/144680/2009/12/symboliclinker.html

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Answer 6

Jan 3, 2010 12:07 PM in response to Dave Calderbank

This works in setting up the Symbolic link, however believe it or not, if you then email the Symbolic link, the Mail app won't let you send it. Instead, it puts up a message saying the file is too big for the Outbox - even though the link is only 4k. No idea what its trying to do, perhaps its security related.

If I zip the Symbolic link it then sends it, but thats getting a bit hard to do with many files going back and forth.

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Answer 7

Jan 3, 2010 2:06 PM in response to Community User

Maybe Mail thinks it's too big because it tries to attach the entire volume with a symlink, but that's just a wild guess.

The only other way I can think of is switching to FTP. Linking wont be a problem, but an FTP volume mounts as read-only in the Finder. If you can find a way to work around that you're good to go.

Good luck, I think this is an interesting question and a solution might be useful to a lot of people. Send some feedback to Apple about this

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Answer 8

Jan 4, 2010 7:54 AM in response to Dave Calderbank

Agree - fairly straight forward productivity requirement, should be supported some how. I have sent the feedback to Apple - perhaps they will consider it some day. Thanks for your efforts on this - it is appreciated.

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Answer 9

Jan 5, 2010 2:10 PM in response to Community User

Ditto on the feedback to Apple. Outlook has this feature and it really helps keep docs in sync (and mail servers from bloating)

Thanks, Jay

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