Set mail folder on an external drive

Does anyone know if it's possible to keep the Mail folder on an external drive. I'm wondering 'cause I use POP mail with Eudora and I like to keep my mail on an external drive. That way when I move to different computers I just bring my external drive with me and all my e-mail comes too. I'd use IMAP but my host doesn't give me enough room to house all my e-mail. I like Eudora but am worried since they are no longer going to be supported and thought I'd give Mail a try. Has anyone heard of this working or if there are any tutorials out there on setting up Mail to read from an external drive? Thanks so much.
-NifflerX

sorry, you are quite right! It IS possible by using symbolic links! I should have thought of that right away.
here is what you do.
Quit Mail and move the folder homedirectory/Library/Mail to your external drive. After that's done move the original folder to some other location outside homedirectory/Library like the desktop or simply delete it.
open terminal and enter the following commands:
*cd ~/Library*
*ln -s /Volumes/"externaldrivename"/Mail Mail*
Substitute the name of your external in the above.
Also, the above command assumes that you moved the Mail folder to the top level of the external. if not, modify the path accordingly.
That's it! what this does is create a symbolic link to the Mail folder on your external inside the Lbrary folder. I tested it and it works quite well. just make sure that when you start Mail, the external drive is mounted.
To undo this, trash the symbolic link we created and move the mail folder back to ~/Library.

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How do I move my Home folder to an external drive?

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1, Yes. Making a partition for the clone is what you want to do if you want a bootable clone.
2, If you want a bootable clone, you do not want to create disk image.
3, Dragging and dropping will not get all of the files the was cloning software will. Using drag & drop uses more superficial commands then the cloning software uses. So that is is not able to get everything.
The next two link are a couple of site that explain how to set up SD to clone a disk.
http://www.lansharks.net/lansharks/SuperDuper_Backup_Instructions.html
http://mac.appstorm.net/how-to/hardware-how-to/how-to-make-a-bootable-hard-drive -clone-with-superduper/
The link below is the complete manual for SD
http://s3.amazonaws.com/com.shirtpocket/SuperDuper/SuperDuper.pdf
I hope think helps.

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An iTunes library file could not be found in the folder "itunes music". please choose a different folder.
I have an external hard drive that has all my music... which is backed up by another external hard drive. The primary drive which iTunes plays from is called Itunes Music - Maxtor (brand of HD). Today when I opened itunes I could not find any of my songs... however could see the drive on my desk top. So when I clicked the drive went to a song double clicked the song the song played in itunes. Meaning the folder is there and the content is still there but itunes won't locate the folder. Also the folder is set up correctly in itunes. meaning in preferences itunes is set up to use the external drive... any suggestions?

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I have a 1TB collection of music in a folder on an external drive within a folder that is NOT called iTunes Media, but which until now had behaved as if it were.
I just switched to a clone of my old 1TB drive on a 1.5TB drive. After 11 hours of locating my 157000 tracks, I was able to find and use every track. However, when I added a new track, apparently I lost the ability to add new music tracks within the Music folder. Instead, a new iTunes Media folder was created within the folder which SHOULD have been called iTunes Media.
In the (new) iTunes Media folder there are a few folders containing the music I added after the switch. In the Music folder (below, but higher hierarchy) there is 1TB of music, which means it cannot be copied into the (new) iTunes Media file on the 1.5TB drive (not enough space).
Even though it would entail 100+ hours of new clone-backup time, the most logical solution would be to discard the embedded iTunes Media folder, rename the top-level folder iTunes Media, then let iTunes relocate the tracks again (over another 11 hours) and reload the few tracks loaded since the switch.
However I do not know if iTunes will allow this to work, and if so, what needs to be done in order to make it work.
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Thanks
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I am getting a bit lost on what was done and exactly why you did it that way. It looks to me like you use iTunes with standard preferences settings and you didn't so much move your media folder to the external drive as your whole iTunes library (everything in the top level folder including all the media files). This should have been done simply by copying the iTunes folder from the old drive to the new one, renaming the AllMyiTunesMusic folder if you so desire, then starting iTunes while holding down the option/alt key and selecting that folder as the iTunes library to now start using. Apart from the copy time when you could go away and drink a pot of coffee the actual labor time would be about 2 minutes. I think you must have done something different which has kind of messed up your library and resulted in duplication of files. Some of those folders such as Movies and the neighboring Music folder should be in the media folder, but don't move things about in Finder or iTunes may lose track of them and things will get worse. If you can go back and do things properly then I recommend you do so, otherwise we can see what we can work with here.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.

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_*"The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "NAME.mp3" could not be read or written. (Error code -36)_"*
This is the error message I get when trying to copy my iTunes music folder to an external drive. I am following Apple's knowledge base article, so yes, I have consolidated my library, have closed iTunes and there is plenty of room on the external drive. For what it's worth, I am also getting this error when trying to do the same thing with my iPhoto library.
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I had a lot of people telling me to re-format, erase, reinstall, run utility programs ... yada, yada, yada.
First off, test to see if it is the connection type (firewire). I reconnected the offending external drive via USB, restarted the drive and ... BINGO! ... all transfers went perfectly.
Once i knew it was the firewire connection and not the drive itself i simply unplugged my iSight camera (the only other firewire device connected to my machine), reconnected my external drive via firewire and the problem is now corrected.
Firewire buses seem to be very finicky things ... i would suggest eliminating all firewire devices from the machine (except, of course, the external drive you're trying to transfer to) and see if the problem goes away.
Like i said, i simply unplugged my iSight camera and the transfer to my external drive went perfect and my transfer rates went from an average of 4MB/sec to over 19MB/sec.
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I have moved my Itunes media folder to an external drive and Itunes does not find the items in the folder

Running Win7. I moved my entire Itunes library to an external drive to free up space on my laptop. Itunes recognized the change and all was well. That worked fine and I have synced several times from the laptop with the library on the external drive. Now the laptop is in the shop (sigh, not Itunes related a dead network card). I connected the external drive to my desktop, made sure my software was up to date. opened ITunes went to edit/preferences/advanced. Went to change Itunes media folder location and navigated to the proper folder on my external drive and clicked OK. None of the music, videos, etc, that are in that folder show up in iTunes on the desktop. Restarted ITunes, no help, reboot computer, no help. Have I done something wrong or left out a step. I could copy all the media onto the desktop individually and build new playlists but that seems like something that should not be needed? One of the reasons I moved my Itunes media folder to the external drive was so I could use the laptop for iTunes while travel and the desktop for iTunes while at home. Do I have to copy the entire folder to my desktop and take up space there? That would be counterproductive to using the external drive. I searched and saw a hint to hold down shift while starting ITunes but that did not change anything. Any help would be most appreciated!
Jim in WV

Thank you for your prompt response - I did as you said and did a drag and drop into the iTunes window - it imported and got my album art from the net. When I started Itunes with the shift key down I was prompted to choose a library but since I copied over the media folder and not the library folder I was unable to select that so I guess I will have to create a new library and add in all the music, videos, etc. unless I wait for my laptop and export the library or at least that seems to be the case? In short, all my data (iTunes media folder) is on my external drive and can be added to the blank iTunes screen but I can not choose a library folder. Is there anyway around completely making all those playlists again? I am not sure my laptop will survive the shop with data intact and really hate to start over on those.
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Once again thank you for helping me out. I am not too Itunes savvy and really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

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Set mail folder on an external drive

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