How to symlink Daedalus chain folder

There are various reasons why one might wish to symlink the Daedalus chain folder to another location (e.g. lack of storage space, convenience, etc.)

Follow the steps below to create a symlink on Windows, Ubuntu or Mac:

Locate the Daedalus chain folder

Find the chain folder according to your chosen platform. On Daedalus Mainnet it is located at:

Windows

"C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Daedalus Mainnet"

 

Ubuntu

“/home/<username>/.local/share/Daedalus/mainnet”

Mac

“/Users/<username>/Library/Application\ Support/Daedalus\ Mainnet“ 

Create a symlink to an external drive on Windows

Windows:

a) Move the “chain” folder and its content to the desired location, in this example we moved it to the  D:\chain folder. Make sure that the chain folder has been removed from the original location or the next step will fail. 

b) Run command prompt as administrator

c) At the prompt, type

mklink /d "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Daedalus Mainnet\chain" "D:\chain"

In the above example, we moved the Daedalus chain folder to the D:\chain folder and created a symlink.

Create a symlink to an external drive on Ubuntu & Mac

If you are symlinking to an external drive or partition on Ubuntu & Mac, mount the external drive or partition to the user's home directory before symlinking. 

Mac:

        a) Plug in the external drive and open a terminal window

        b) At the prompt, type: 

diskutil list

For example, if the external drive you want to use is called DAGU, you can find its identifier is disk2s1.    

c) Create a new directory inside the home directory to mount the external drive:

mkdir /Users/<username>/mount

        d) Choose the external drive or partition by using the identifier to mount inside the user's home directory:

diskutil mount /dev/disk2s1 /Users/<username>/mount

Obs: If you are using MacOS 10 or newer, you will need to run this command with a different syntax:

diskutil mount -mountPoint /Users/<username>/mount /dev/disk2s1

        e) Move the “chain” folder and its content to the desired location, in this example we moved it to the  /Users/<username>/mount folder. Make sure that the chain folder has been removed from the original location or the next step will fail. 

        f) To create a symlink, type the following at the command prompt:

ln -s /Users/<username>/mount/chain /Users/<username>/Library/Application\ Support/Daedalus\ Mainnet/

Ubuntu:

        a) Plug in the external drive       

        b) Find the drive information

sudo fdisk -l       

         c) Create a new directory inside the home directory to mount the external drive

  sudo mkdir /home/user/mount

         d) Mount the ext drive inside the home for example:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /home/user/mount

         e) Move the “chain” folder and its content to the desired location, in this example we moved it to the /home/user/mount folder. Make sure that the chain folder has been removed from the original location or the next step will fail. 

         f) To create a symlink, type the following at the command prompt:

ln -s /home/user/mount/chain /home/<username>/.local/share/Daedalus/mainnet