sudo rm vs. sudo rm -rf

...I'm unable to sudo rm -rf that folder...

That folder being "Documents"

The following command should specify the permissions on the folder

/bin/ls -dleO@ Documents

Here is what my Documents folder permissions are

drwx------+ 262 me staff - 8908 Jul 24 22:26 Documents

0: group:everyone deny delete

It would appear that Documents has an Access Control List (ACL) entry that denies everyone the ability to delete it.

Which it also appears to prevent everyone from renaming it as well

mv Documents Documents.bob

mv: rename Documents to Documents.bob: Permission denied

You can get around this by using the Nuclear Option (the sudo command). BE VERY CAREFUL when using the 'sudo' command as it runs commands bypassing all the safeties built into the system to protect users from themselves.

sudo mv Documents Documents.saved

Password: your_account_password_which_should_be_the_admin_account

ln -s /Volumes/<your_external_volume>/path/to/Documents Documents

# Make sure everything went as desired

# when you are satisfied, you can remove the original Documents.saved

sudo rm -rf Documents.saved

I do not know what is creating Documents. Is the new Documents folder empty?

/bin/ls -a

If it is not empty, then what is in the Documents folder might give a hint as to what app created.

For the following, make sure you have your Documents copied to the external device

If you goal is to create a symlink to your Documents folder on an external device you can do a simple dance such as the following:

mv Documents Documents.old ; \

ln -fs /Volumes/external_vol_name/path/to/your/external/Documents/folder Documents

rm -rf Documents.old

"sudo rm Documents" should have issued an error and done nothing. Without the -r, the rm is not supposed to delete directories.

What if you do something like

sudo mv Documents Documents.old ; ln -fs /Volumes/external_vol_name/path/to/your/external/Documents/folder  Documents
Password: your_admin_password

As one line, so that you first move Documents out of the way, and then immediately create the symbolic link.

And prefix the mv command with sudo so that you elevate your privileges.