Wondering if there's a preferred way to relocate the ~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Media folder on my Mac. While I have oodles of terabytes of drive space available, my boot drive is a 120GB SSD and today while I was trying to figure out why it was nearly full I discovered that the aforementioned directory is taking up about 1/3 of the drive by itself. Not cool, man. Not cool.
Ideally there'd be an option for this that I've just overlooked, in which case I'll feel stupid but be happy just to know the location. Barring that, I imagine I can move the whole Plex Media Server folder to another drive, then create a symlink or a hard link to it in the App Support folder. If I have to do the latter, does anyone know if a symlink or a hard link is preferred? Been too long since I did this stuff regularly and I've forgotten way too much.
If this isn't a built-in function of PMS, I think I'll add it to the requested features thread. The server's taking up way too much space unexpectedly to not have a way to relocate it without resorting to technical means.
Yep.... from what I have seen there is no built in option. Good idea on the feature request. :)
Just soft sym link it...
Open up terminal from apps ---> utilities.... Swap out your stuff in red. When typing out the commands if you press tab after typing the first few letters it will auto complete for you. The sudo command will ask for your password to change users to root. The rm command is going to prompt you to delete the old plex media server folder after step 2 where you have copied it to the external drive. Step 4 sets up the sym link so that it will pull from your other drive.
Then do the following after quitting Plex Media Server.
Thanks. That’s essentially what I did yesterday but forgot to follow up in this thread. Details are in my post in the feature request thread. In a nutshell, I moved and symlinked the Plex folders in Application Support and Caches. Works great - just wish for others’ sake there was a way to do it from the server settings instead of a technical solution.
Yep.... from what I have seen there is no built in option. Good idea on the feature request. :)
Just soft sym link it...
Open up terminal from apps ---> utilities.... Swap out your stuff in red. When typing out the commands if you press tab after typing the first few letters it will auto complete for you. The sudo command will ask for your password to change users to root. The rm command is going to prompt you to delete the old plex media server folder after step 2 where you have copied it to the external drive. Step 4 sets up the sym link so that it will pull from your other drive.
Then do the following after quitting Plex Media Server.
I'm not expert with terminal and I couldnt get this to work. My plex media server folder moves to another drive, and my terminal says I've the link set up, but when I fire up PMS, it has lost all the media info. It will generate new PMS folder to application support folder and will not look for the linked folder. Any tips how I should advance with this problem?
If you created the symbolic link properly, Plex shouldn't be able to create a new folder in Application Support because a file with that name will already exist (namely the symlink). Are you sure you're doing this after completely shutting down the Plex server?
After step 4, what happens if you browse to the '~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server' folder in the Finder? Does it exist? Does it open on the other drive? Hard to troubleshoot this without more info.
If you created the symbolic link properly, Plex shouldn't be able to create a new folder in Application Support because a file with that name will already exist (namely the symlink). Are you sure you're doing this after completely shutting down the Plex server?
After step 4, what happens if you browse to the '~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server' folder in the Finder? Does it exist? Does it open on the other drive? Hard to troubleshoot this without more info.
I'm stuck on a Win7 machine at work without time to verify, but step 4 looks backwards to me. The command should be in the form:
ln -s
So if you've successfully copied or moved the folder from your own library to the '2TB' volume, the command should be this (I believe; going from memory, so exercise due caution):
ln -s /Volumes/2TB/Plex\ Media\ Server/ /Users/OP/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server
(Note that you will not be able to execute this command if you have not deleted the original directory as in step 3 of Xeux's post, since something with that name will already exist in the target directory.) This should create a symbolic link, in the Application Support directory on your boot volume where the original was located, to the actual PMS directory on the 2TB volume to which it was copied.
Hope this solves your problem. Please follow up either way.
Yep.... from what I have seen there is no built in option. Good idea on the feature request. :)
Just soft sym link it...
Open up terminal from apps ---> utilities.... Swap out your stuff in red. When typing out the commands if you press tab after typing the first few letters it will auto complete for you. The sudo command will ask for your password to change users to root. The rm command is going to prompt you to delete the old plex media server folder after step 2 where you have copied it to the external drive. Step 4 sets up the sym link so that it will pull from your other drive.
Then do the following after quitting Plex Media Server.
I'm stuck on a Win7 machine at work without time to verify, but step 4 looks backwards to me. The command should be in the form:
ln -s
So if you've successfully copied or moved the folder from your own library to the '2TB' volume, the command should be this (I believe; going from memory, so exercise due caution):
ln -s /Volumes/2TB/Plex\ Media\ Server/ /Users/OP/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server
(Note that you will not be able to execute this command if you have not deleted the original directory as in step 3 of Xeux's post, since something with that name will already exist in the target directory.) This should create a symbolic link, in the Application Support directory on your boot volume where the original was located, to the actual PMS directory on the 2TB volume to which it was copied.
Hope this solves your problem. Please follow up either way.
I had already followed these directions a while back and everything worked perfectly. Now, the problem is that I need to relocate it to another hard drive. I’m wondering what of the above needs to be changed in order for this to work. Do I just changed the “/Users/…” to the current location? and then do the obvious change to the new location?
Just delete the link pointing from ~/Library/Applications Support to the location where you had the folder moved to. An then create a new link to the new location.
btw, there should be no need to be root, as you should own both location. If not then fix that.
Command 4 is wrong. The two pathes need to be exchanged. Read it as “create a link to … at …”
@brossow said:
I’m stuck on a Win7 machine at work without time to verify, but step 4 looks backwards to me. The command should be in the form:
ln -s
So if you’ve successfully copied or moved the folder from your own library to the ‘2TB’ volume, the command should be this (I believe; going from memory, so exercise due caution):
ln -s /Volumes/2TB/Plex\ Media\ Server/ /Users/OP/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server
(Note that you will not be able to execute this command if you have not deleted the original directory as in step 3 of Xeux’s post, since something with that name will already exist in the target directory.) This should create a symbolic link, in the Application Support directory on your boot volume where the original was located, to the actual PMS directory on the 2TB volume to which it was copied.
Hope this solves your problem. Please follow up either way.
…a bit of an old post, but has been very helpful! THANK YOU!!
I have followed all of these suggested steps. I presently have what I believe to be a symbolic link in place of the original Plex Media Server folder, and if I have entered it in correctly is pointed to the new location of the folder. The following was my terminal command with the first link being the new location and the second the original.
@eckarth THANK YOU for your response! I thought it was this way as well, but terminal doesn’t want to accept that in this order. When I input it with the new location first followed by the original location, a symbolic link is made in the place of the original location, giving me the confidence it is correct.
I tried control/click on the symbolic link and ask it to “show original location”, which then tells me “The alias “Plex Media Server” can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found”. So I try “Fix Alias” and point it to the new location, and it gives me an error code -36. Aughhh! I have attempted to delete all .ds_stores, thinking this may be the problem, but to no avail. This may be why the PMS won’t kick in…but I have no idea how to correct.
Open to any and all suggestions! I offer in exchange an neverending gratitude and good karma…!!!
@brandonshough@gmail.com said:
Yep… from what I have seen there is no built in option. Good idea on the feature request.
Just soft sym link it…
Open up terminal from apps —> utilities… Swap out your stuff in red. When typing out the commands if you press tab after typing the first few letters it will auto complete for you. The sudo command will ask for your password to change users to root. The rm command is going to prompt you to delete the old plex media server folder after step 2 where you have copied it to the external drive. Step 4 sets up the sym link so that it will pull from your other drive.
Then do the following after quitting Plex Media Server.
i didnt move my folder to an external source like you did but i did just do i clean install of the GM of MacOS Sierra and transferred back my Plex Media Server folder only for the Plex Server app to crash each time i clicked it. i found this support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201100678-Repair-a-Corrupt-Database
i indeed had a broken database after using the first line in terminal. its possible the database just isnt connected to the app even though you have the links fine.
I had success with the 4-step approach but to get the symbolic link working, I needed to change ownership from root to my own user (is an administrator.) This makes me think, but I didn’t test, that it would have been preferred to skip step 1 working as ROOT, unless it is required to copy and remove out of /Users/Library.
ln -s <directory and link (file) name where link will be created>
ln -s /Volumes//PlexMediaServer /Users//Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/
My Plex Server wouldn’t load when I did this…for some reason it would not recognize the Plex Media Server alias…I finally gave up…instead of moving the entire Plex Media Server folder…I just created an alias and moved the Media folder and Metadata folder which were the largest folders about 90%…then the plex server loaded fine.
I moved my PMS Application Support directory to an external drive today. However, I had to tweak the command given above in order to create the symbolic link. Everything is working fine. Here’s what I did on my Mac mini (2011) running macOS 10.13.6 (High Sierra) and PMS version 1.14.0.5470:
