Assigning folders for Downloads, Documents, Photos, Movies, and Music (formerly iTunes) on External Drive

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Level 1

4 points

Assigning folders for Downloads, Documents, Photos, Movies, and Music (formerly iTunes) on External Drive

Mac support says this issue is "out of their scope":

I have a new Mac Mini (Let's call the 1tb internal drive "A")

I have the 3tb system HD from my old iMac in a housing and is attached to the Mac Mini via USB. All of my old data is on this drive ( "B" )

I have a 2tb external SS drive attached to the Mac Mini via Thunderbolt ( "C" ).

problem: Drive A is too small to hold all of the data from Drive B. I want to set up the Mini so that folders for Downloads, Documents, Photos, Movies, and Music (formerly iTunes) live on Drive C and the OS in the Mini automatically stores all new data in those categories to said folders on Drive C. Drive A will only contain applications.

How do I get the Mini to do this?

Thank you

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Nov 2, 2022 1:30 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

muguy

Level 10

82,129 points

Nov 2, 2022 1:57 PM in response to jackostrato

Sorry, photos is a bit different. Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

don’t forget that after setting media folders for movies, music, you need to the organize library for everything to copy to the external drive. Depending on the size of your library, it can take some time

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Answer 2

jackostrato Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2022 1:39 PM in response to muguy

I assume you mean manually? This I understand but how do I get the mini to automatically send every download, document, and new additions to the Music, Movies, and Photos libraries to the external drive?

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Answer 3

muguy

Level 10

82,129 points

Nov 2, 2022 1:44 PM in response to jackostrato

You can change the location of the media in music, movies, and photos. Eg. Open TV. Go to Tv > Settings > Files and specify an external drive for your content. (similarly in Photos and Music). Once you do that, you can elect to keep the folder organized and to copy content to the location. Then, you can delete the current media on your Mini. Anything new will move to the external library. The same is tru for Photos and for Music.

I keep my music and movies externally. Provided the external drive is connected, everything just moves over. If the drive is not connected I can quit the app, connect the drive, open the app, and then go to File > Library > Organize library to copy over content (and then, of course, delete the content downloaded while the drive was not connected in the files on the Mac). When the drive is not connected the system defaults to the traditional folders. So, only a little clean up from time to time.

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Answer 4

muguy

Level 10

82,129 points

Nov 2, 2022 2:10 PM in response to jackostrato

Once you verify everything is working as expected, you can safely trash the library on Drive A. If you open photos, hold down the option key when clicking on the photos app to select the external library or simply double click on the external library to open it.

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