Have you ever noticed your Mac running a bit slower than usual? Or maybe you’ve been getting those annoying “Your disk is almost full” notifications. If so, it might be time to consider moving some of your applications to an external hard drive. Not only can this free up valuable space on your Mac’s internal drive, but it can also help your system run more efficiently. But how do you do this without breaking anything? Let’s dive in.
Why Move Applications to an External Hard Drive?
There are several reasons why you might want to move your applications to an external hard drive:
- Free up space: Applications, especially large ones like Adobe Creative Suite or Final Cut Pro, can take up a significant amount of space on your Mac’s internal drive. Moving them to an external drive can free up space for other files and applications.
- Improve performance: If your Mac’s internal drive is nearly full, it can slow down your system. Moving applications to an external drive can help improve your Mac’s performance.
- Organize your files: If you have a lot of applications, moving some of them to an external drive can help you keep your Mac’s internal drive more organized.
What Applications Should You Move?
When deciding which applications to move to your external hard drive, consider the following:
- Size: Large applications that take up a lot of space are good candidates for moving.
- Frequency of use: Applications that you don’t use often can be moved to an external drive. That way, they’re not taking up space on your Mac’s internal drive when you’re not using them.
- Need for speed: Applications that don’t require a fast read/write speed can be moved to an external drive. Some applications, like video editing software, perform better when they’re run from your Mac’s internal drive.
How to Move Applications to an External Hard Drive
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to move your applications to an external hard drive:
- Choose the right external hard drive: Make sure the external hard drive you choose has enough space for the applications you want to move. It should also be formatted for Mac. You can do this using Disk Utility on your Mac.
- Create a new folder on your external hard drive: This is where you’ll move your applications. You can name it something like “External Applications” for easy reference.
- Move the applications: Open Finder and go to the Applications folder. Select the application you want to move, then drag and drop it into the new folder on your external hard drive.
- Create an alias: After moving the application, create an alias for it in your Applications folder. To do this, right-click on the application in your external hard drive, select ‘Make Alias’, then drag the alias to your Applications folder. This will allow you to easily access the application from your Mac.
- Test the application: Open the application from the alias in your Applications folder to make sure it works correctly.
Cleaning Up After the Move
After moving your applications, you might notice some leftover files on your Mac’s internal drive. These are usually support files that the application needs to run. You can leave these files where they are, as they don’t take up much space. However, if you want to keep your Mac as clean as possible, you can move these files to the same location as the application on your external hard drive.
Symbolic Links: The Glue That Holds It All Together
Symbolic links, or symlinks, are a type of file that points to another file or directory. You can use symlinks to make your moved applications appear in your Applications folder and other areas of macOS, like Launchpad. Here’s how you can create symlinks for your moved applications:
Open Terminal
You can find Terminal in your Utilities folder within Applications, or by searching for it in Spotlight (CMD+SPACE).
Create the symlink: In Terminal, type the following command:
for file in /Volumes/Applications/*; do ln -s “$file” /Applications/; doneThis command creates a symlink for each application in your external Applications folder and places it in your internal Applications folder.
Check your Applications folder
After running the command, you should see your moved applications in your Applications folder. They’ll also appear in Launchpad and other areas of macOS.
It is important to keep your external hard drive connected to your Mac whenever you want to use the moved applications. If the drive isn’t connected, the applications won’t work.
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