Mac Users, How to Make Joplin Data Reside on External Drive

[Mongoose]

Hi,

Thank you for allowing me to join!

New, and happy Joplin user.
Refugee from Evernote, haha
I don't want to insult your intelligence, but I made this verbose so I won't leave anything out.

Here's how I got it to work:

You need Linkmaker, from the Apple App Store or where-ever.

1. Show invisibles (Cmd Shift Period) or 3rd party app to toggle invisible files folders that begin with a period.

2. On your boot drive. /users/whatever_u_named_it/.config

3. In your .config file look for Joplin Desktop Folder.

4. Copy the Joplin Desktop folder to somewhere on your external drive.

5. Delete it from your boot drive.

6. Go to your external drive to where you put the Joplin Desktop folder there.

7. Install Linkmaker to applications folder on boot drive if you haven't already, and launch it.

8. Navigate to your BOOT drive into /users/whatever and stop right there. Locate the .config folder

9. Click and drag the .config folder into the left hand side of Linkmaker, under where it reads "Create symbolic links in Directory."

10. Lower right side of Linkmaker, Process folders, click on "Like Files." Leave the "only include" blank

11. Very important. Left side of Linkmaker, click (select/highlight) .config from the list. Especially if you have other folders listed there.

12. From the External drive, click drag the Joplin Desktop folder onto the big arrow. It turns green, wait until it turns black again.

13. Done. On your boot drive, navigate to /users/whatever/.config then the symlink appears as a folder (names Joplin Desktop) with a file size of less than 1k.

14. Import some more stuff into Joplin and, if all went well, the symlink file size should remain less than 1k and your new imports etc go to external drive where they belong.

Linkmaker is cool, I use it to store applications on a fast external drive and link em to the applications folder on the boot drive.

Enjoy!

[rjenna6]

As i know it allows the user to access the content from the original location as if it were still there, while physically storing it in a different location.

The purpose of these instructions appears to be to save storage space on the boot drive by moving the "Joplin Desktop" folder to an external drive while maintaining access to it from its original location.

Before proceeding with these instructions, it is essential to have a backup of important data to avoid any potential data loss in case of mistakes during the process.

[artincube]

Thanks for the tip. Can be done in the terminal also.

Could you tell what happens if you start Joplin without your external drive, so with a failed symlink.
How does Joplin react?
On a Mac, I suppose the Joplin folder could be put on an encrypted sparse bundle dmg and symlinked from there. For those with sensitive data, specially on an external drive.