If you have a massive, 50-gigabyte folder full of family videos buried deep inside your Documents folder, you probably want an easy way to access it without clicking through six different folders every time.
Your first instinct might be to drag the folder directly onto your Mac desktop. The problem is, dragging a 50GB folder to your desktop actually moves the entire folder, cluttering your desktop and disrupting your organized file structure. If you try to copy and paste it, you end up duplicating 50GB of data, wasting massive amounts of hard drive space.
The correct macOS solution is to create an Alias. (Windows users know this concept as a “Shortcut”).
What is an Alias?
An alias is a tiny, microscopic file (usually only a few kilobytes) that acts as a magical portal. When you double-click an alias on your desktop, macOS instantly teleports you to the original file or folder, no matter where it is hidden on your hard drive.
You can create 10 different aliases pointing to the same file, and they take up zero storage space. Best of all, if you delete an alias, you are only deleting the portal—the original file remains perfectly safe.
How to Create an Alias
Creating an alias takes just two clicks.
- Open Finder and locate the original file, folder, or application you want to create a shortcut for.
- Right-click (or Control-click) directly on the item.
- From the drop-down menu, select Make Alias.
macOS will instantly create a brand new file sitting right next to the original one. You can easily identify the alias because it will have the exact same name as the original, but with the word “alias” added to the end. It will also have a tiny curved arrow icon in its bottom-left corner.
You can now click and drag this new alias file anywhere you want—put it on your desktop, stick it in your downloads folder, or pin it to your Dock. You can also rename the alias to anything you want; changing the name of the alias does not change the name of the original file.
The Keyboard Shortcut Method
If you want to place the shortcut on your desktop instantly without having to create it and then drag it, you can use a hidden modifier key trick.
- Locate your original file in Finder.
- Hold down both the Option and Command keys on your keyboard.
- While holding those keys, click and drag the original file onto your desktop.
When you let go of the mouse button, macOS will leave the original file exactly where it was, and instantly generate an alias on your desktop. (You can tell it is creating an alias instead of moving the file because a curved shortcut arrow will appear next to your mouse cursor while you are dragging).