Just because we love symbolic links on Windows so much—thanks, Steam Mover —we’re going to show you a handy macOS app that lets you set up symbolic links on Apple’s operating system as well.
Anyone with access to the shared folder will see the symlink named “Batter recipe”, but they won’t be able to open “Batter recipe.pdf”.
Why does my folder say “Symlink Backup Copy”?
Any items that were synced to your Dropbox account via a symlink that linked outside of your Dropbox folder prior to mid-2019 can be found in a copy of the folder appended with (Symlink Backup Copy). Any changes made to items in the original location the symlink referenced will no longer sync to your Dropbox account. If you still want to sync the original item, we recommend adding that item to your Dropbox account instead of the symlink.
By default, this folder will be unchecked in your selective sync preferences.
Why do I have a folder named “Shared Symlink Backups”?
Any items that were synced to your Dropbox account via a symlink that was within a shared folder and that linked outside of a shared Dropbox folder prior to mid-2019 can be found in a new folder named Shared Symlink Backups. Any changes made to items in the original location the symlink referenced will no longer sync to your Dropbox account.
Symbolic Link Windows
Users with access to the shared folder may no longer have access to the content referenced by these symlinks—they will only be able to see the symlink file. If you would like these users to have access to both the symlink and the items it references, you’ll need to move the referenced item inside the shared folder.
What should I do if I see a symlink where I previously accessed a file or a folder?
Symbolic Links Mac Apple
If the symlink is in a shared folder and you did not create it, it is possible that someone had previously created a symlink and the files referenced by the symlink are not in the shared folder. To resolve this, you should ask the owner of those files to move the files into the shared folder, instead of the symlink.
If the symlink is in a shared folder, or a personal non-shared folder, you may want to replace the symlink file with the files it references to make those files accessible across the website and all your other devices.