iCloud Drive is a space saver and handy tool to keep storage on your MacBook optimised. It automatically manages space without removing the files and folders, so you can still access them seamlessly without having to download them manually first. While moving Desktop and Document folders is a breeze, other system related folders – like Downloads – are met with an error message.
Download My Icloud Files Mac Desktop For example, I like to keep my temporary files in the Downloads folder which has the habit of growing to quite a large size. Keeping it on iCloud Drive, which just doubled my storage to 2TB for the same cost makes sense and is a handy way to free up space. UnRAR files on your Mac from the Finder. If you have saved a.rar file in the Finder, double-click it to open. After opening it, you can view some or all of the contents by highlighting the files.
If you are just moving any folder you created, simply drag and drop, remove the original and create an alias to the new one in the original location. Fleetwood mac the complete blue horizon sessions download. This guide is mostly relevant for system folders that other programs may rely on.
For example, I like to keep my temporary files in the Downloads folder which has the habit of growing to quite a large size. Keeping it on iCloud Drive, which just doubled my storage to 2TB for the same cost makes sense and is a handy way to free up space. Here’s a quick guide on how to move it:
- Simply drag and drop your downloads folder to iCloud drive, which will upload the files in the background so you can get on with things
- Trying to remove the Downloads folder to replace it with an alias (link) to the new location results in an error message, so here’s the workaround:
- Open the Terminal.app (you can use Spotlight search if you don’t have a shortcut in your dock by hitting cmd+space and typing Terminal)
- Drag the Downloads folder from its new location in iCloud Drive to the Terminal window, which automatically changes you into the right directory
- Type in “pwd” to note the path to the Downloads folder in the iCloud Drive, which is not easy to ascertain otherwise
- Open a new Terminal window by pressing cmd+N and type in the following (or copy and paste):
- Enter the password you use to log into your Mac and press OK to remove the old Downloads folder
- Now type in the following command to link the Downloads folder from iCloud Drive to your home folder: sudoThe key thing to note here is that when you copy and paste the location from step 5 (pwd) earlier that you need to add a backslash to the end of Mobile like in my example above. Also, you need to replace <YOUR USERNAME> with whatever the name of your home folder happens to be, which is usually your username. Your path may be totally different, so check it against the output from step 5 (pwd).
Caveat emptor: Your mileage may vary, let me know on Twitter or by posting a comment.
Mac OS X doesn’t have an obvious way to view the exact text based path to a folder (otherwise known as a directory) in the finder window. You can have it show a graphical path, but getting just the text based path to a directory (for use in the Terminal for example) requires a couple of extra steps.
Yosemite users special note
Apple removed the ability to easily copy the file path in OS X Yosemite. Yosemite users must now follow a complicated procedure of creating a Service to do this simple task or take the path directly from the command line. How to download minecraft bedrock edition on mac 2020.
El Capitan - Built in file path copy function
If you are a El Capitan user you are in luck, Apple has now created a specific command to capture the file path. Instructions on how to use this can be found here.
Mavericks and below - How to find the Absolute Path to a folder on Mac OS X
Here are the instructions for finding the file path on Mavericks and below..
The first thing to do is identify the folder you need to know the full path for. In this example it’s the “month 1″ folder of my Insanity Workout folder (and yes, I did buy Insanity, directly from Amazon actually and these are my back-ups. It’s not pirated like so much Beachbody stuff unfortunately is!):
Now we can simply press the “cmd+i” keys together to open up the “Get Info” window. This displays various bits of info about the folder as you can see below:
You can see that the Get Info window contains the line “Where:” followed by the text folder path. This is the path to the folder we have been looking for. The path to the folder is highlighted and made clearer in the screenshot below:
You can now copy this text based absolute folder path and paste it into your Terminal window. NOTE – If the directory path contains spaces, as the example i have used in this post does, you MUST use ” quotation ” marks around the path when typing it into the Terminal. The screenshot below demonstrates this:
Why might I need to know how to find the path to a folder on Mac?
Knowing the text based absolute path to a folder can be useful for a number of reasons. Being able to locate the precise path allows you to unlock the full power of the Terminal, which can often be faster and more efficient that using the Graphical User Interface.
Mac OS X doesn’t have an obvious way to view the exact text based path to a folder (otherwise known as a directory) in the finder window. You can have it show a graphical path, but getting just the text based path to a directory (for use in the Terminal for example) requires a couple of extra steps.
Yosemite users - special note
Apple removed the ability to easily copy the file path in OS X Yosemite. Yosemite users must now follow a complicated procedure of creating a Service to do this simple task or take the path directly from the command line.
El Capitan - Built in file path copy function
If you are a El Capitan user you are in luck, Apple has now created a specific command to capture the file path. Instructions on how to use this can be found at teh link below:
Mavericks and below - How to find the Absolute Path to a folder on Mac OS X
Here are the instructions for finding the file path on Mavericks and below..
The first thing to do is identify the folder you need to know the full path for. In this example it’s the “month 1″ folder of my Insanity Workout folder (and yes, I did buy Insanity, directly from Amazon actually and these are my back-ups. It’s not pirated like so much Beachbody stuff unfortunately is!):
Now we can simply press the “cmd+i” keys together to open up the “Get Info” window. This displays various bits of info about the folder as you can see below:
You can see that the Get Info window contains the line “Where:” followed by the text folder path. This is the path to the folder we have been looking for. The path to the folder is highlighted and made clearer in the screenshot below:
You can now copy this text based absolute folder path and paste it into your Terminal window. NOTE – If the directory path contains spaces, as the example i have used in this post does, you MUST use ” quotation ” marks around the path when typing it into the Terminal. The screenshot below demonstrates this: https://zgxebbc.weebly.com/blog/download-adobe-photoshop-cs6-full-version-free-mac.
Why might I need to know how to find the path to a folder on Mac?
Where Is The Download Folder On A Macbook Pro
Knowing the text based absolute path to a folder can be useful for a number of reasons. Being able to locate the precise path allows you to unlock the full power of the Terminal, which can often be faster and more efficient that using the Graphical User Interface.