Where to save files after Catalina upgrade

[spacecadet1968]

I’ve just ugraded from Mojave to Catalina and found a Relocated Items folder on my desktop containing the folders and files I was used to storing on my hard drive.

My question is, now that I can’t store these files directly to the hard drive as I used to, where do I save them?

For instance, I had a folder containing general work files in folder called “Work” on the root level of the hard drive. I also had a folder with all my music in it called “Music” there as well.

Is Apple wanting me to save all this stuff on an external drive and work that way? I know I’m missing something, I’m not sure what.

Thanks in advance, and apologies if I'm asking a question that's already been asked.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[harryb2448]

Move directly to the Trash. That folder pops up each and every time a Catalina upgrade and update is carried out.

 

[MacInWin]

The larger answer is to save your files where you saved them before, in your Home Folder under Documents. What is in that Relocated folder are file that were found in areas you should NOT be using for your personal information. You mentioned the root of the drive, for example. That is NOT your account's space and should not be used for storing anything. In Catalina, there are two Volumes in the Container of the hard drive. One is named "Macintosh HD" and the other is "Macintosh HD - Data." Finder merges these two to make it appear as one drive, as people are used to seeing. But "/" plus "/System," "/Library," and "/Applications" are now off limits to users as added security. Only the system can write to those four areas. You, as a user, can write to /Users/<<your account>> and pretty much nowhere else on the internal drive.

I suspect you are a migrant from Windows, where things are wide open and one puts stuff in the root directory all the time (I, too, migrated, so I recognize the act). But macOS is based on a different security approach and each user is separated and secured from the others. Catalina steps up the security one notch by removing direct access to those four areas I mentioned, all on the "Macintosh HD" Volume of the drive.

So, if you want the files in the "Relocated" folder, you can look for them in your Documents folder, and if they are not there, copy them from Relocated to there and delete Relocated. If the files are already in Documents, you can just delete Relocated, as Raz0rEdge suggested.

And don't put things at "/" anymore. In fact, you probably will get an error if you event try.

 

[spacecadet1968]

Hi Jake,

Thanks for getting back to me. Now it's making a bit more sense.

I'm sure I'll going to get pilloried for this, but I've been saving files to folders on the HD since the pre OS X days. (There, I"v confessed my sins!)

So to be clear, I can put what was formerly in folders on Macintosh HD into the Home Folder under Documents?

Thanks for your help,

Michael

 

[MacInWin]

Yes, you have full read/write authority in your home folder and all of the subfolders there. For example, you can either put your Music folder in ~/Documents or just in ~/ (where the "~" is shorthand for "/Users/<<your account>>." Here is, for example, my ~/ directory (you can see I have dedicated folders for ebooks, Music and Pictures at that level, along with a Documents folder that has other stuff):

 

[spacecadet1968]

Awesome - Thanks a million Jake, I really appreciate it. I'd been putting off going to Catalina for some time - mostly because our IT guys told us to hold off, and because of that, I didn't want to upgrade at home until I know how it would behave at work.
I owe you a beer for this.
Thanks!
Michael

 

[harryb2448]

What you see on your Desktop is merely a alias for the Relocated items stored in your User folder. You can delete the alias.

If a Relocated Items folder appears on your Mac after upgrading macOS

If a Relocated Items folder appears after you upgrade macOS, read the PDF document in the folder for more information.

support.apple.com

 

[toMACsh]

As the article might say, you can confirm it's an alias if it has a small black arrow in the lower left corner. You can also confirm it with Get Info.