Put My Apps On External Hard Drive On Mac

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Case - I need to move my apps.

Apr 06, 2020  Choose Apple menu  System Preferences, then click Startup Disk. Click the lock and enter your administrator password. Select your startup disk, then restart your Mac. If you see a message that your security settings do not allow this Mac to use an external startup disk, check the External Boot setting in Startup Security Utility.

'Hello. My hard drive is getting full and I would like to move some of my programs to an external hard drive. Please let me know how I can do this and be able to access the programs via the external hard drive without any problem.'

As time goes on, you may install a large amount of game software or other software on your computer. To avoid low disk space warning, you may want to move programs to a larger drive and save the newly installed software to it instead of C drive. Indeed the best way to increase C drive space is to transfer programs to an external hard drive.

Problem - Is it possible to move programs to an external hard drive

When you install a program it generally puts a lot of files throughout the hard drive directories and registry, not just in the directory you select. If you just simply copy the programs to an external device, you may be able to install programs to an external hard drive. However, the program will probably only work from that computer you installed from. Thus, you cannot directly drag program files to another drive whether on the same disk or different physical disk.

Here comes the problem. How can you move programs to an external device and make sure that you can run the program on any other computer? You need to use an application transfer software EaseUS Todo PCTrans to help you effortlessly move or transfer applications to an external hard drive.

EaseUS Todo PCTrans is an easy PC migration solution that can help you to move data, apps, and transfer account from one computer to another or to an external device. In only one click, this transfer tool sets up the new PC and makes you a seamless swap, instead of manual copy and paste. No need to reinstall your apps now.

You can download this software here now and directly launch this software to help you move apps from PC to an external hard drive.

Solution - Move/transfer apps and programs to an external hard drive

Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer. Open EaseUS Todo PCTrans and select 'App Migration > Start'.

Step 2. Find and choose the applications (marked as 'Yes') that you want to transfer. You can select multiple apps.

Click 'Browse' and select your external hard drive as the destination to store the apps.

Put My Apps On External Hard Drive On Mac Drive

Step 3. Then, click 'Transfer' to move your programs to an external hard drive

By default, your Mac starts up from its built-in hard disk, but a startup disk can be any storage device that contains an operating system compatible with your Mac. For example, if you install macOS on an internal or external drive, your Mac can recognize that drive as a startup disk. You can then follow the steps in this article to start up from it.

Use Startup Disk preferences

When you use Startup Disk preferences to select a startup disk, your Mac starts up from that disk until you choose a different one.

  1. Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Startup Disk.
  2. Click the lock and enter your administrator password.
  3. Select your startup disk, then restart your Mac.

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If you see a message that your security settings do not allow this Mac to use an external startup disk, check the External Boot setting in Startup Security Utility.

Use Startup Manager

When you use Startup Manager to select a startup disk, your Mac starts up from that disk once, then returns to using the disk selected in Startup Disk preferences.

  1. Press and hold the Option (Alt) key immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac.
  2. Release the Option key when you see the Startup Manager window.
    If your Mac is protected by a firmware password, you can release the key when you're asked to enter the password.
  3. Select your startup disk, then click the arrow under its icon, or press Return.
    If you press and hold the Control key during this step, your selection is saved in Startup Disk preferences, so it persists until you change it.

If your Mac is using OS X Lion 10.7.3 or later, you can also use this method to start up from your Time Machine backup disk. Startup Manager identifies your Time Machine backup as ”EFI Boot.”

If you can't select your startup disk or start up from it

Check for these possibilities if you can't see your disk in Startup Disk preferences or Startup Manager, or your Mac won't start up from it.

Check for a compatible operating system on the startup disk

Make sure that your startup disk is using a version of macOS that is compatible with your Mac.

To start up from an external disk with macOS Catalina 10.15 or later, the disk must connect via USB-A, USB-C, or Thunderbolt, not FireWire.

Check startup security settings

Put my apps on external hard drive on mac not showing up

If you're using a Mac that has the Apple T2 Security Chip, check the settings in Startup Security Utility. These settings determine whether your Mac can start up from another disk.

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Check for Option ROM firmware

If you're in Startup Manager and can't see a third-party startup disk, the startup disk could be using Option ROM firmware. To enhance system security, Mac computers with up-to-date software don’t show devices that use Option ROM firmware until you load their firmware. To do that, press Option-Shift-Command-Period while in Startup Manager. If your startup disk appears, do that each time you want to start up from it or from another disk connected to it.

If you're using a firmware password, the ability to load Option ROM firmware is disabled as an additional security protection.