Symbolic links for Documents folder - OS X 10.8.2

[NBCGLX]

Just installed a small-ish SSD as my boot drive in my Mac mini and I want to move my Documents folder to the internal platter drive, using a symbolic link so that OS X still sees the folder as being present in its usual spot and just installs the files to the platter drive. In order to do that, I copied my Documents folder to the platter drive, and now I need to delete the original Documents folder for my user but OS X 10.8.2 doesn't appear to let me do that. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!!

[onlinegenie]

I think the easiest solution is to have a directory inside your Documents directory. This directory could then be linked to from the SSD. To navigate to this directory quickly you could put it on the left-hand side of your finder window.

[hayne]

I haven't tried deleting (or otherwise fiddling with) my "Documents" folder, but I imagine that you can do what you want if you use Unix commands in Terminal (instead of trying to do it with Finder).

[cpragman]

I haven't done this with my documents folder before, but have done it with my music and photos folder. In terminal, create a symlink pointing to the relocated folder.

[benwiggy]

There may be an ACL on the Documents folder, preventing its deletion.

sudo chmod -N ~/Documents

Then create your sym link.

[NBCGLX]

Quote: Originally Posted by onlinegenie I think the easiest solution is to have a directory inside your Documents directory. This directory could then be linked to from the SSD. To navigate to this directory quickly you could put it on the left-hand side of your finder window.

Do you mean to create symbolic links to the folder/files that are created by OS X and other apps within the Documents folder, rather than the actual Documents folder as I expressed interest in doing?

Quote: Originally Posted by cpragman I haven't done this with my documents folder before, but have done it with my music and photos folder. In terminal, create a symlink pointing to the relocated folder.

Music and photos are easy. You can move your iTunes media just by changing the directory in iTunes preferences and then telling iTunes to consolidate the library. That I've done before. iPhoto is even easier because you can literally move the iPhoto library file to a new location and then just point iPhoto to it the next time it launches.

Quote: Originally Posted by benwiggy There may be an ACL on the Documents folder, preventing its deletion. sudo chmod -N ~/Documents Then create your sym link.

I'll try that tonight. I understand that "sudo chmod -N" removes the ACL of the specified folder. But, do I need to do this at the root, or just for my user; e.g., DCarter/Documents? I guess I can just drag the Documents folder into Terminal to simplify it.

[NBCGLX]

Quote: Originally Posted by benwiggy There may be an ACL on the Documents folder, preventing its deletion. sudo chmod -N ~/Documents Then create your sym link.

This worked. Thanks!