Stupid simple version control using dropbox

J. Landman Gay jacque at hyperactivesw.com
Sun Feb 9 22:38:26 EST 2014


On 2/9/14, 7:51 PM, Peter M. Brigham wrote:
> On Feb 9, 2014, at 5:50 PM, J. Landman Gay wrote:
>
>> Apple has ballooned their aliases to include a ton of stuff, and my
>> 2K text file has an alias that is almost 3 megs in size.
>
> Wait a minute! What could possibly be taking up 3Mb is a simple
> pointer with an icon? Is this Mavericks? What in the blue blazes is
> Apple doing??? Anybody know?

I wondered the same thing when I noticed it. Apparently it started in Mt 
Lion, and continues in Mavericks. It isn't a simple pointer any more, 
it's a mass of info, including one or more icon images along with folder 
information and other data. You can delete at least one of the extra 
icon images by cutting it in the Get Info box, which reduces the size 
somewhat, but not entirely. The size apparently depends on all sorts of 
factors. In many cases the alias is larger than the original file.

Google "mac os huge alias file" and you'll get hits. Here's one:

<https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3988292?tstart=0>

You can make symlinks in Terminal or use a utility, those are still 
tiny. But they break if you move the original file, of course.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com




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