MacOS App of the Week: SymbolicLinker
Just because we love symlinks on Windows so much – thanks Steam Mover – we’re going to show you a handy macOS app that also lets you set up symlinks on Apple’s operating system.
The application is called SymbolicLinker , which is an open source utility for macOS with the corresponding name. While it’s a bit tricky to install – in the sense that you should probably read the included installation instructions.rtfd when downloading the DMG file – it’s incredibly easy to use once you’ve configured it as a service on macOS.
This is why symbolic links and this app are so good: Let’s say you’re running out of space on your Mac. Instead of going through the somewhat easy but still arduous process of uninstalling powerful apps or games and reinstalling them elsewhere, you can move the folder that is taking up too much space to another hard drive – internal or external.
Then you create a symbolic link based on the new folder location, rename the link to the folder name, and drag the link to where the folder was. This symlink tells macOS, “Hey, let’s pretend these files are where they were, even if we technically moved them to a different location.” It’s like a small bridge that connects the old location to the new one, and your system doesn’t care about the difference.
With SymbolicLinker, creating new symbolic links is as easy as right-clicking a folder and choosing Create Symbolic Link. When I tested it with some Steam games, the service successfully downloaded the games that I moved to my desktop – not where Steam normally stores them – all thanks to the symbolic links I put in where I originally installed them. The whole process took about a minute and couldn’t be easier.
Do you have a Mac app (paid or free) that you really like? Tell us about it: [email protected] .