One thing I didn't point out earlier helps justify using Dropbox in this scenario. I waited until all the files moved to the Dropbox folder had propagated to the cloud by making sure all the little folder indicators were green. The way I made this work across all three computers was I did the above process on one machine first (my desktop iMac). As far as OS X file access functions and all your applications are concerned, they're still accessing ~/Documents, but in reality, all your files are stored in your Dropbox folder. When you use this command, you create a link at ~/Documents that points to the ~/Dropbox/Documents folder. The next two elements of the command are the source (~/Dropbox/Documents) and the destination (~/Documents). Hard links in POSIX operating systems use actual physical file locations and tend to be less forgiving of system changes. The symbolic link is considered a "soft link" in that it links using the named path. The -s option means create a symbolic link. The ln command tells the Mac to link a file. You can probably do this with your current access level, but if you get a failure error, put sudo in front of the above command line. Here's the command for that: ln -s ~/Dropbox/Documents ~/Documents Next, with Terminal still open, you'll want to create a symlink (roughly like an alias) that points any requests for Documents in your user folder to the Documents folder in Dropbox. And, of course, ~/Documents tells the command to go to your home directory and remove that Documents folder. The -f option forces files to be removed without prompting. The sudo command is "superuser do" which elevates your access level to root, the -r option removes the contents of the directory recursively (in other words, all folders underneath). Open Terminal and then delete your Documents folder using the command: sudo rm -rf ~/Documents Carefully recall the process you took to make a backup so you're sure you made a backup. Keep in mind you'll be duplicating files, so make sure you have enough storage space on your Mac before you do it.ĭouble-check that you did a backup. At this point, you should have all your files in both folders. It's probably best to reboot your Mac and do this right after reboot, taking care that any of your launch-on-boot applications aren't ones that open documents in the folders you're working with.Ĭopy your Documents folder to your Dropbox folder.
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