Synchronize a folder placed elsewhere with Dropbox on Mac OS X

Happy Pi day to all!

This is a tutorial about how to synchronize a folder that is not placed inside Dropbox folder by creating symbolic link on Mac OS X.

A symbolic link is a special type of file that contains a reference to another file or directory.

In Mac OS X, a symbolic link can be created with the command below in terminal.

ln -s path-to-target-directory symbolic-link-name

For example, if I would like to share a folder called Projects in my Document with Dropbox, I may run the following command one by one in the terminal.

Computer-Name:~ dreamrunner$ cd Dropbox
Computer-Name:Dropbox dreamrunner$ ln -s ~/Document/Projects Projects

There should be a folder called Projects appeared in your Dropbox folder with a small arrow in the bottom left corner. And the folder will be synchronized by Dropbox now.

These “two folders” should only take up one copy of space from your hard disk.

Enjoy~