where can user files be saved?

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Level 2

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where can user files be saved?

On my new 2022 Mac mini, I decided to downsize to a smaller internal HD than I currently have on my iMac. My intention is to have the system files on the internal SSD and the data files on an external Samsung T7 portable SSD. The mini came with Monterey preinstalled.

Specifically, I was planning to have:

The Applications, Library, and System folders on the internal SSD.
The Users folder on the external SSD. That means moving the Users folder from the internal SSD to the external SSD.

Will this work? How should I format the external SSD when used in this manner? Samsung recommends NTFS, but I thought all the new Mac drives use APFS. The external SSD will be connected to the Mac mini by USB-C.

Thanks.

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Mar 25, 2022 7:47 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

113,082 points

Mar 25, 2022 8:34 PM in response to William M.

You need to format it as APFS.

If you want to move your home folder to an external drive, create an admin user and leave that home on the internal drive.

As an alternative, most of the macOS data libraries can be directed to exist in another location. You can set Photos, Music, iMovie to maintain their data on the external independent of your home.

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Answer 2

Mar 28, 2022 7:13 AM in response to William M.

As Barney suggested, do keep one extra admin user completely in the internal drive. This may save you down the road (actually, everyone should always have an extra admin user, just in case anything goes wrong with the main account).

Don't move the Users folder and, if I may suggest, don't move any individual user's home folder as such.

It is far safer to move that user's Documents, Pictures, Movies and so on, if necessary, to the external drive, and replace them with symlinks. This way, everything will basically appear as usual, but when opening one of these - say, Documents - the actual folder in the external drive opens, seamlessly.

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

113,082 points

Mar 26, 2022 7:19 PM in response to William M.

I just drag the Users folder to the external drive?

No.

Follow this guide (although you won’t be changing the name). Moving a file system item is really the same as renaming. So, in the field where the home folder is, change it to /Volumes/drivename/homeusername

Change the name of your macOS user account and home folder - Apple Support

You need another admin user with a home folder on the internal to recover when the external dies or is otherwise unavailable.

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Answer 4

William M. Author

Level 2

177 points

Mar 26, 2022 5:58 PM in response to Barney-15E

.Barney-15E wrote:

If you want to move your home folder to an external drive, create an admin user and leave that home on the internal drive.

As an alternative, most of the macOS data libraries can be directed to exist in another location. You can set Photos, Music, iMovie to maintain their data on the external independent of your home.

To clarify, I created my root level user account with admin privileges on the internal drive and the installation created Applications, Library, System, and Users folders. Can I just drag the Users folder to the external drive?

What do you mean when you said "data libraries can be directed to exist on another location"? How do I direct them to do that?

Thank you.

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Answer 5

William M. Author

Level 2

177 points

Mar 29, 2022 7:59 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

Don't move the Users folder and, if I may suggest, don't move any individual user's home folder as such.

It is far safer to move that user's Documents, Pictures, Movies and so on, if necessary, to the external drive, and replace them with symlinks. This way, everything will basically appear as usual, but when opening one of these - say, Documents - the actual folder in the external drive opens, seamlessly.

I created copies of the Downloads, Movies, and Music folders on the external SSD and was able to delete the originals and then create a symlink from the startup disk to the copies. I made copies of the Documents and Pictures folders, but was not able to delete them. I was using the Terminal with the command sudo rm -rf ./Documents (for example), but that wouldn't delete the folder. Suggestions? Thanks.

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Answer 6

Mar 30, 2022 2:27 AM in response to William M.

I just checked and the Documents and Pictures folders, besides the usual Unix type permissions, have ACL setup.

If you do

ls -lde ~/Documents

you will see something like this:

drwx------@ 67•••••••• staff 2144 Mar 1 10:59 /Users/••••••••/Documents

0: group:everyone deny delete

This is what is preventing the deletion.

It is possible to change this, but at this point I am not sure it will be such a good idea.

It is far safer to just delete the contents and put a symlink inside Documents, or just leave Documents empty and add a symlink with a different name, like, say, MyDocuments, and have that point to your external drive.

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Answer 7

William M. Author

Level 2

177 points

Mar 30, 2022 9:49 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

I decided to go with the second suggestion--I created new folders on the external SSD to match up with the Documents and Pictures folders and created symlinks with the new folder names back to the internal HD. I'm ready to transfer files from my old computer to the new computer. When I copy the files from my previous Documents folder to the new folder, do they go directly into the new folder on the SSD?

Why do I need a symlink on the internal drive at all? Just leave the Documents folder empty and store everything on the external SSD.

Related question. When I Get Info on the symlink I created, it says the Kind is Alias and the original is itself. Is that normal? When I created the symlink in Terminal, I think I made a mistake. I did ln -s /Volumes/SSD/MyDocuments and it doesn't appear to link the external file to the file on the internal drive and that's what created the error.

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Answer 8

William M. Author

Level 2

177 points

Mar 30, 2022 10:05 AM in response to William M.

I figured out the last question myself. I wasn't including the original source in the ln -s command.

Thanks for your help, Luis.

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where can user files be saved?

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