Change the location of the GarageBand libraries

If you are like me and your powerbook's hard drive space is precious, you'd better put those GarageBand loops some other place. Unfortunately, Apple's installer does not let you do that, and if you try to put them some other place and create an alias in the right place, the app will complain that it can't find the files.

The solution lies in the UNIX layer of OS X. Simply create symbolic links of the directories instead of regular alias files. To do that, you need to:

Move the GarageBand folder contents into another folder (I did not move the GarageBand folder itself, in case the app wants to have it on the same hard drive for any unknown reasons). The three directories to move are named Apple Loops, Apple Loops Index, and Instrument Library.

Launch the Terminal and type:

 % cd /Library/Application\ Support/GarageBand/

Create the links to the moved folders:
```
 % ln -s /Volumes/DiskName/Path/Apple\ Loops/ ./Apple\ Loops
 % ln -s /Volumes/DiskName/Path/Apple\ Loops\ Index/ ./Apple\ Loops\ Index
 % ln -s /Volumes/DiskName/Path/Instrument\ Library/ ./Instrument\ Library
```
Replace DiskName with the name of the hard drive holding the directories, and replaced Path with the names of any subdirectories between the hard drive and the location of the loop files.

GarageBand should launch and your loops should be visible by clicking the eye icon on the bottom ... Voila!

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Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: vineetb on Tue, Jan 20 2004 at 12:28PM PST

What a space saver on my Powerbook!!

There is a SymbolicLinker which adds "Make Symbolic Link" context menu (right-click) in Finder.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17655

But the ln command works fine as well.

Thanks.
- vineet

---
rock on\'

Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: JDub800 on Mon, Feb 23 2004 at 12:41PM PST

Okay, SL (SymbolicLinker) seems to be the way to go, but how do you handle SymLinks in the Finder? I create the SymLink of the copied GB lib folder in the new dest folder and then tried to copy it back to the original location folder on the boot volume....the Finder then tries to copy the original folder back - complete with original contents! The Finder is behaving correctly here, I guess!!

So how do I create a SymLink of the GB libs with SL??

Sorry for being a dumba** here!! ;)

J>

Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: JDub800 on Mon, Feb 23 2004 at 2:05PM PST

I went back to the terminal in the end...all sorted now!! :)

J>

But how do you install when you don't have the space.
Authored by: gaudior on Tue, Jan 20 2004 at 4:18PM PST

I have only about 3gig free, and the installer won't install. Is there a way to force it to install to a firewire drive?

The only thing I can think of to do is to install a minimal version of OS X on my external and then install garageband there. I should be able to run the application from there, without booting from there, correct?

But how do you install when you don't have the space.
Authored by: ProfDrLuigi on Fri, Jan 23 2004 at 1:07PM PST

Hi.

I tried something. Should be interesting for People with not enough Space on System-Volume.

Create a Folder "Application Support" on a Volume with enough Space. Do a Symb. Link on that folder and put it in the /Library of your System. Rename the existing Folder in /Library to "Application Suppor" or something other. Now copy the Symb-Link into /Library. After that start the Installer. When the install is done you have all your files on the Volume with enough SPace. Delete the Symb-Link in /Library and Rename the real App Supp. to the old name. Now you do a Symb-Link from the Apple-Loopsfolder on your bigger Volume and put it in the "real" application folder. Et voila. The Installer-Hassle is blow away. :)

Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: zenox on Wed, Jan 21 2004 at 9:36AM PST

since I didn't want to fill my startup partition, I extracted the "GarageBand" folder (the one that should be placed in /Library/Application Support) with Pacifist to another volume. The main app, the midi drivers and the documentation are correctly installed on my startup volume. Then I did those symbolic links.
Now everything works, but when I click the "eye icon" I get the following message:
There are no Apple Loops installed on your System. Please reinstall the Apple Loop Package..

That's weird, since the "Instrument Library" has been successfully found.....any ideas?

Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: stomp on Thu, Jan 22 2004 at 5:12AM PST

Garageband creates new (empty) folders for you in the expected location. Loops and index. Create a symbolic Link of the contents of the real files and put these into the newly created folders. Should work fine.

Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: zenox on Thu, Jan 22 2004 at 10:01AM PST

thanks for you answer, but I read it about 10 times and I still can't understand what you mean exactly: the only think I get is an empty folder called "SingleFiles" located inside "Apple Loops". Other than that, the content of the ApplicationSupport/GarageBand folder looks IDENTICAL to the original one that we can see with pacifist inside the GarageBandApp.pkg, which is:

an "Apple Loops" folder -> "Apple Loops for GarageBand" with 1106 .aif files
an "Apple Loops Index" folder with 2 .txt files
an "Instrument Library" with all its content (this is correctly recognized)

Now, what do you mean with "the contents of the real files" ? Which "real files" ?

Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: zenox on Sun, Jan 25 2004 at 8:17AM PST

Okay, I found what was wrong: file permissions.

I had the opportunity to check them in a "normal" and functional GarageBand installation .....and found out for example that all the 1106 files inside the "Apple Loops for GarageBand" folder, should be set as "root:admin rw-rw-rw-" (the chmod "octal" equivalent is 666). Extracting that folder with Pacifist caused those files to be set as "rw-r--r--" (644). So, I used my application ;-) "Chop" (www.zenonez.com/chop) to change that with a simple drag&drop operation...and now everything works perfectly.
Okay, now, I'm not 100% sure that was the only difference (in file permissions) that cause the problem; so basically, you should be sure to exactly "imitate" all the (sub)files and (sub)folders permissions of the original GarageBand folder inside /Library/Application Support.

So, if you already know you'll move those big folders to another drive or partition after the GarageBand installation, you can extract them using Pacifist (and the above hint) instead of installing everything and then delete the thousand files (over 1.8GB) from your original partition (probably causing some disk fragmentation).

Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: burble on Sat, Feb 7 2004 at 6:48AM PST

The approach sounds good, but the iLife installer still needs to see 2GB free on the System partition for it to work.

Change the location of the GarageBand libraries
Authored by: realtwang on Wed, Dec 1 2004 at 4:22PM PST

I'm wondering if something like this could also help with a similar problem I'm having with export in Garageband...I can't export anymore because I had to move my iTunes library to a different internal disk due to space constraints. I moved the library, created an alias in my Music folder, and iTunes sees it fine. Now, however, Garageband will not export anything. Is there some way to use this process on the iTunes Library folder and help Garageband recognize it?

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