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To move the user home folder from my mac mini m2 internal ssd to external ssd, i copied the User folder to the external ssd and try to change the user home directory to the new path in the system setting, a pop window says you must restart computer, but the OK button is grey. I cant go further to conform this change and restart computer. My macOS is Ventura.
Mac mini (M2, 2023)
The easiest way is to:
0) Open two Finder windows, one showing your home folder contents, and another showing the location in your external drive where you want to save your files.
1) Create a folder - say, "My Documents" (I prefer not to reuse the standard names "Documents", "Music", etc, though you can certainly do that as well) - in the external drive.
2) Holding down Command and Option keys, drag the new folder over to the home folder, and release.
You have just created an alias. This alias sits inside your home folder; when you double-click on it the folder in the external will open. Also, if you save files there, they are saved to the folder; for all intended purposes, the alias is a proxy for the actual folder.
The easiest way is to:
0) Open two Finder windows, one showing your home folder contents, and another showing the location in your external drive where you want to save your files.
1) Create a folder - say, "My Documents" (I prefer not to reuse the standard names "Documents", "Music", etc, though you can certainly do that as well) - in the external drive.
2) Holding down Command and Option keys, drag the new folder over to the home folder, and release.
You have just created an alias. This alias sits inside your home folder; when you double-click on it the folder in the external will open. Also, if you save files there, they are saved to the folder; for all intended purposes, the alias is a proxy for the actual folder.
I strongly recommend that you don't do this.
Instead, make subfolders in the external drive, copy some of your content there, and add symlinks or aliases to these folders under your home folder.
Hi, Luis, I go.t confused about how to use alias to replace moving user home directory
Since the system creates files directly to internal user home directory, not go to the alias. That means you have to copy them to external manually then delete them from internal to save internal space. But this will cause "file not found" problem because the system search files from user home directory, but not from alias. Is this true?
Thanks.
Some folders may be treated specially by the system - like "Documents" or "Desktop" or "Music".
I don't recommend that you delete them (and I think you actually can't).
But let's take as an example the "Documents" folder, and suppose you want its contents to live in your external drive.
Step by step:
1) Create a new folder in the external - let's call it "My Documents" (but you can call it anything really).
2) Drag all the the contents of "Documents" to "My Documents". This will COPY them, and may take a while, depending on how much content there is.
3) Drag all the contents of "Documents" to the trash (since you already have copied them elsewhere and want to reclaim space). Empty the trash
4) Command-Option-drag "My Documents" to your home folder.
Now you will have "My Documents" sitting inside the home folder, but it is actually just an alias to the real folder in the external. For practical purposes, though, it is pretty much as if it sat right there inside home.
Thank you Luis for your suggestion. It should be much more reliable and safe. I would like to try it this way. Could you please introduce more info about Symlinks and Aliases? Thanks again. alex
Thanks Luis, I will try it.
Move home folder from internal to external ssd
