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I have two volumes, say VolumeA and VolumeB in the same Container on the same Device. VolumeB has a number of large files which I like to move from VolumeB to VolumeA WITHOUT physically copying the content. Command line is no problem. Copying is very tedious since that process straddles the capacity of the device.
Thank you for any hints.
Manfred
MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.7
You can just hold down the Option key and drag the selected files from Volume A to Volume B and that will "move" the files to B. However it's not recommended as if there's a hiccup, more likely with moving large numbers of files, durning the move the files can be deleted from A and not get to B. You will lose the files and have to restore them from your most recent Time Machine backup.
It's like the old carpenter's adage: measure twice - cut once. The computer version is: copy, verify and then delete.
No. The data must be copied to the new volume, and deleted from the old volume.
In the Finder hold the Command key while dragging the file(s) to the new volume.
In the Terminal you can use the mv command.
But both methods copy and delete under the covers.
I’ve been a file system developer since 1998, and no file system I’ve worked on, even the ones with multiple volumes and shared free space, have what you want.
If you do not have enough shared free space in the APFS container, the just create either an Alias or symbolic link on VolumeA that points to the file on VolumeB.
Or introduce an external file system you can use as an intermediate holding place, that allows deleting the file on VolumeB, then move from the external to VolumeA.
Just hold down the option key when you drag and drop, or copy it and hold down the option key when you paste.
for those that have already answered did that somehow get deleted with APFS? It’s only worked for like 20 years.
Thank you Bob Harris. I had been working on file systems way back in Digital Equipment Corporation, and there our volume manager mapped each file to its unique entry in the index file of the underlying (full) disk structure. Therefore, mapping from one volume to another was possible (if you knew how to do it). I had hoped APFS might have a similar possibility.
But I agree with your second reply to use an auxiliary intermediate volume if necessary. That is probably the safer way to do the (copy-delete) move, even though it is technically far less interesting :-)
Thank you,
Manfred
Nice! I was with Corporate R&D in the European Applied Research Center in Germany. As part time activity I developed disk defragmenters for FILES11 (RSX and VMS), and was later involved in storage systems for our research operating systems.
RSX pre-dates me. My DIGITAL experiences were a pair of PDP-8’s in college (punched paper tape on ASR33 teletype), then nothing until a pair of VAX-780’s in 1979 as a customer. But my DIGITAL employment was not until 1988 in the PATHWORKS for Mac group. The DIGITAL UNIX stuff did not happen until 1995. And I had the same office for DIGITAL to Compaq to HP mergers, until HP laid off everyone involved in porting AdvFS and Cluster technology to Itanium HP-UX at Christmas 2004 (Merry 🎅 ).
Every Volume on an APFS drive has its own (independent) file system. The only way to 'move' files from Volume A to Volume B is by copying them. It makes no difference that the two Volumes are in the same Container on the same Device.
how about if you mark then and cut and then paste at the dir you wish them moved to?
That is still a full copy, then delete under the covers.
I’m assuming OpenVMS, as I was DIGITAL UNIX AdvFS on the ZKO3 3rd floor.
Is there a method to move (not copy) files from one volume to another volume in the same container and device?
