So ~/Documents/myfile.txt and ~/Dropbox/myfile.txt are both names for the same data editing ~/Documents/myfile.txt will instantly change the data in ~/Dropbox/myfile.txt too, because it is the same data. :)īasically, with a hard link, the same file data exists in two places at once. Don't be scared to try it out, you can go back within the last 30 days and download your old versions from your dropbox history if something goes wrong. Unfortunately you can't hard-link a folder, so you have to resort to things like gnu cp or rsync -link-dest to make a tree of hard linked files.Īnd remember the safety net that dropbox provides. This makes hard links much more useful for sharing, but not useful for synchronization across computers.
If the dropbox versions are deleted, the original hard linked copy stays on the disk. If you hard link a file into dropbox, whenever it is edited in its dropbox location by any computer, that link is broken and the original file stays the same. Hard links, however, do not function this way, and still save disk space. This option is best used for synchronization across computers, not sharing. This means that if you share a folder via symlink with somebody, and they delete those files, they delete *your* files.
If you modify a file, such as edit the exif or id3 data, it will be modified on all computers. Symlinks will work exactly like you had copied the folder into your dropbox. They are very useful, but it's important to understand how they work.
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