Transfer entire 'Documents' folder from System Info>Manage folder

Question

Transfer entire 'Documents' folder from System Info>Manage folder

I want to transfer the entire 'Documents' folder from the window you see when you open System Information>Storage>Manage, into an external hard drive...then erase that entire folder from my iMac's hard disk.

I was hoping to drag/drop directly, but when you select All the documents in this Manage window, then drag, they do not move.

Mot of these files are downloaded movie files (not iMovie,) but they are not just the downloaded docs found in my Movies folder. This Storage>Manage>Documents folder totals 415 GB, whereas my 'Documents' folder on my hard drive (user>me>movies) only totals 60 GB

How do I grab and transfer all these?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Mar 24, 2022 2:05 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 24, 2022 3:47 PM in response to my ginger

The User folder in my Home directory has my personal name on it and shows ALL my personal User folders for a total of 650 GB.

The Documents folder in the right pane includes only a portion of those, all movie files with various suffixes (mp4, mov, wmv, etc.) and totals only 400 GBs. That's the only part I want transferred, not all the other 250GB worth of folders in my Users folder.

And curiously, although they are all movie-type files, the sub-folder in my Users folder called MOVIES includes only 50 GB?? Very confusing.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

245,189 points

Mar 24, 2022 3:37 PM in response to Rhythm Earthsong

Hi, I don't think you can do it, what shows in Storage Report seems to be a "Smart" folder, ie, what Spotlight thinks are documents wherever they are, where in the finder, Documents is a real folder with contents, which an actually be things other than documents, see the difference on mine...

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Answer 3

my ginger

Level 5

4,910 points

Mar 24, 2022 2:29 PM in response to Rhythm Earthsong

When you go to about this Mac/storage. And then click on manage and then your document folder in the left pane. You have to then click on file browser in the right pane. Then you can drag and drop to your external drive. To delete the files you need to go to the Go -top menu and then Home. In Home click to open Documents and right click the ones you want to delete and move to trash.

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Answer 4

Mar 24, 2022 3:26 PM in response to my ginger

No, this does not work.

Clicked on 'Documents; in left pane, brings up entire list in right pane.

Whether I click on one-at-a-time individually or several, they will not drag to my external drive.

Only option that shows up is Delete, which I do want to do, but not before I have a copy of each file on the external drive.

The only work-around I have found so far, is to click the little search icon that shows up when I click on each individual file. That displays the file in it's original current folder. I can drag/drop from there into the external hard drive, then delete it from the drive it is currently living in. I cannot delete it directly form the Storage pane, even though 'Delete" presents as an option when I highlight it on that pane. I tried. I get an error message The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -47.) Forces me to find the file in the folder it currently lives and delete if from there - one-at-a-time. No way to select multiple files in the Storage pane and copy them over to the external file.

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Answer 5

my ginger

Level 5

4,910 points

Mar 24, 2022 5:38 PM in response to Rhythm Earthsong

If all you want is the movies then drag and drop them. All it will be doing is copying the folder or movie files.. You have your movies in your documents folder? If the movies in the document folder are not in a subfolder, you may want to create a folder on your desktop to drag and drop the movies into, then drag and drop that folder to your external drive. You can name it by right click, rename. I'm not sure about the 50gb in your movies folder, unless some of the movies you downloaded ended up in there.

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Answer 6

my ginger

Level 5

4,910 points

Mar 24, 2022 3:37 PM in response to Rhythm Earthsong

That folder for documents is in your home folder, which is your user folder on the drive. You can drag and drop that folder to an external drive. Then you can delete the contents of the folder.

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Transfer entire 'Documents' folder from System Info>Manage folder

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