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You are here: MacNN Forums > Our Archives > General Archives > Delicious Monster > Storing your library on an external drive

 
Storing your library on an external drive
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Yann Z
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Status: Offline
Aug 24, 2006, 03:06 AM
 
If you run out of space on your startup drive, you may want to store your library somewhere else. In order to run Delicious Library using a library located on an external drive, creating a regular alias won't do. You need to create a Unix Symbolic Link, which is nearly the same but not quite. Still, seen through the Finder, it'll look like you've created an alias Folder in /Library/Application Support, ie exactly where Delicious Library expects to find its data. And that alias Folder should point to the actual database, which you'll have put on your external drive.
To create a symbolic link, you must use the instruction ln -s (ln for link, and s for symbolic, I assume...). Here's the syntax:

ln -s [the path to the folder you want to point at] [the path to the alias folder}

In other words:

ln -s [the path to your database on your external drive] [the path to where the application needs to find the database]

How to proceed:

Make sure Delicious Library is not running

Get your library at /Users/yourusername/Library/Application Support. There, you'll find a folder called Delicious Library. It's the folder containing your whole library. Drag and drop it anywhere on your external drive, anywhere you want it to stay.

Take away the original copy of your Delicous Library. Either you trash it or, if you don't feel to secure about it, you put it somewhere else on your startup drive. It shouldn't remain where it is.

Open the Terminal and type
ln -s
Type space again before entering the path to your Library
Fortunately, the Terminal supports drag and drop when you need to enter a path. You must get your Delicious Library Folder, the one on your external drive, and drag and drop it on the insertion point in the Terminal. Instantly, the path to this folder will appear, reducing the chances to make a typing error. Unix doesn't like them at all...
Type space again
Now you need to create the alias folder exactly where the application expects to find the original folder. You must enter the path the old skool way, and it goes like this:
/Users/yourusername/Library/Application\ Support/Delicious\ Library/
If you're even less familiar with Unix than I am, maybe you should copy and paste the previous line, replacing "yourusername" with your actual user name, of course.
When everything's set, type return.
Nothing much seems to happen.... But if you go to /Library/Application Support, you should see a new item has been created. It looks exactly like an alias folder, but it's a supa powa Unix alias folder. And if you launch Delicious Library, the app will go to this alias folder, and will be redirected to the actual Library on your external drive.

Two more things:
- Storing the library on an external drive allows library sharing between two or more Macs. Remember this might induce some errors, and this is not endorsed by the makers of Delicious Library.
- Do everything mentioned here at your own risk. If you don't feel confident, always keep a copy of your database in case things turn sour. And don't hold me responsible.
     
 
   
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