Apple - Can I create a Desktop Shortcut/Alias to a Folder from the Terminal?
It's possible to do it in one line of Terminal. Let's say you want to alias to the file "/Users/me/Library/Preferences/org.herf.Flux.plist".
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder"' -e 'make new alias to file (posix file "/Users/me/Library/Preferences/org.herf.Flux.plist") at desktop' -e 'end tell'
You should replace to file
with to folder
if you have a folder.
Here's a shell script that allows you pass in a file or folder path to create the alias:
#!/bin/bash
if [[ -f "$1" ]]; then
type="file"
else
if [[ -d "$1" ]]; then
type="folder"
else
echo "Invalid path or unsupported type"
exit 1
fi
fi
osascript <<END_SCRIPT
tell application "Finder"
make new alias to $type (posix file "$1") at desktop
end tell
END_SCRIPT
If you name this script make-alias.sh
, chmod u+x make-alias.sh
and put it in /usr/local/bin
, you can run e.g. make-alias.sh ~/Library/Preferences
.
Try this on Terminal:
cd ~/Desktop
ln -s ~/Library/path/to/folder