SymbolicLinker

Perfect example of doing one thing and doing it well. Why the Finder does not include this as part of an alias is anyone's guess. The unfortunate part is that an Alias is so much more robust yet the OS is so tied to symbolic links ti cannot use Aliases most of the time. Apple should fix this and make Symbolic Links work as transparently and robustly as aliases. Until then, we have SymbolicLinker (thanks!!)

I've been using SymbolicLinker for years, maybe since it first appeared (before 10.6, anyway). I'm not a Unix geek, but prefer symbolic links for their spatial economy – they're only a few K in size (actually only a few bytes, but take up the minimum 4K file size in the file system), while standard MacOS aliases always include a copy of the original's icon (even with folders), making them over a megabyte in size. Aliases are more robust, usually remembering the link even if the original is moved, but I find symbolic links work fine in most cases. So, thanks for the Service, and for the update – I spent a couple hours last night struggling with some 8,400 symbolic links on the Desktop, and was nervous about using SymbolicLinker again, so came here and found there was an update to address just that problem. Don't know why it happened then, as I've been using v.2.1 just fine for several months. Anyway, works fine again now, in El Capitan 10.11.6.

I've been using SymbolicLinker since the early days of OS X and I consider it to be one of the most critical additions to the Mac OS. I use SymbolicLinker for the reasons stated in the first paragraph of Installation Instructions.

SymbolicLinker 2.1.1 works perfectly for me in OS 10.12.2. I was previously using version 2.0v3 but the Sierra update caused it to stop working. (It might have been as simple as opening the service from the Finder to authenticate, but I updated to 2.1.1 instead of doing that.) Following the installation instructions document was very simple. I also learned to go into the Keyboard system preferences pane Shortcuts menu > Services to deselect all the services I never use. Cudos for that tip!

Deepest thanks to Nick for keeping this project alive through the years, and for keeping SymbolicLinker free! This is an example of the Mac community at its finest.

Was wary after reading previous reviews to use with Sierra, but version 2.1 is working perfect for me in macOS Sierra 10.12.1 just as it used to do in older OS versions for me (10.9.x, etc.). I didn't use this running 10.11.x or 10.10.x, so YMMV with that particular older OS, I dunno. Anyway.... Nice, quick way to create symbolic links with a simple right-click and/or keyboard shortcut on a file instead of pulling up Terminal, etc. -- Works with LaunchBar, etc. as well since it can pull up Services within the macOS as well and apply them to selected files, folders, etc. I often use symlinks to enable various custom hacks I've made to macOS, etc. and this is much quicker than using Terminal directly each and every time. If you need symlinks, you know who you are. Otherwise, stick with aliases.

I'm not gonna pan SL yet, because I'm not sure that what happened isn't my fault, although I can't see how it is. I installed it in /Library/Services and launched it as per instructions, but the two times I clicked on "Make Symbolic Link" in my services menu (El Cap 10.11.6) it covered my desktop with upwards of 5,000 links. I had to boot into a clone to get rid of them. Huh?

Doesn't work in Sierra. Finder freezes for a moment, then unfreezes, no link made.