Change Default Mount Point of an APFS Encrypted Volume

Hi, i'm having a APFS encrypted volume called "CS", that's always by default mounted to "/Volumes/CS".


I'm hoping tha it's mounted by default to "/Users/myusername/CS" instead.


What'd be a proper way to do that? Thanks!

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Mar 3, 2022 8:22 AM

Reply

Similar questions

3 replies

Mar 3, 2022 2:24 PM in response to FeiY

I am assuming this is an external disk and not an APFS volume on the internal disk and not an APFS volume on a network share via sparse image, etc.


I would recommend a symbolic link in /Users/myusername/CS pointing to /Volumes/CS instead of trying to force a mount directly to a users home folder.


In Terminal (do this while volume is mounted):

ln -s /Volumes/CS /Users/myusername/CS


Always remember to eject / unmount the drive versus just unplugging it. You can opt to not display removable drives on the desktop in the Finder Preferences -> General tab as well.

Mar 4, 2022 5:31 AM in response to FeiY

FeiY wrote:

For some reason, my OS is on a case insensitive APFS, while I need to have a case sensitive filesystem for some works (that involves files of the same name but different cases)

This is standard for both macOS and Windows. Do NOT change it or bad things could happen since macOS and even third party developers will not be expecting your boot volume and main storage area to be case sensitive. You can either create another APFS volume within the same Container which is case sensitive or you can use an external drive which you format with a case sensitive volume. The tricky part becomes when you move something from a case sensitive volume to a case insensitive volume especially if moving a lot of items within a folder you may have trouble with multiple files with "matching" names.


You can try to edit the "fstab" file to have an entry for your custom mount point. You will need to use the UUID of the volume since it won't change unless you erase the volume. I don't know how the fstab entry should be formatted for macOS as the macOS options are a bit different than what I'm familiar with under Linux. By default there is no "fstab" file within macOS. The basic template would be something like this:

UUID=<UUID-of-Volume>       /Users/<username>/CS     <fs-type>     rw,auto


example:

UUID=A1B2C3D4-A1B2-C3D4-X1Y1-ABCDEF1234XZ     /Users/hwtech/CS    apfs    rw,auto


To edit (and create) the fstab file you can use the following command which will use the "nano" editor which is the easiest built-in command line editor to use:

EDITOR=nano  sudo  vifs


For more details you can check out the "fstab" manual:

man  fstab



Mar 3, 2022 10:19 PM in response to James Brickley

Actually it is a volume in internal disk.


As for symlink, i sometimes run into tools that doesn't dereference it, so I'd prefer to have it actually mounted to the path under home.


For some reason, my OS is on a case insensitive APFS, while I need to have a case sensitive filesystem for some works (that involves files of the same name but different cases)

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Change Default Mount Point of an APFS Encrypted Volume

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.