* Locate Media Folder outside of Project folder

[chris_searl]

I would like to share one media folder with several Family Historian projects and some other Family History programs. All my Family History programs and my media folder are located as sub folders of a Dropbox Family History folder.

Is it possible for Family Historian to treat the external media folder as its default media folder?

My PC use W10 and I am happy to edit the registry if that is required.

Chris

[tatewise]

Yes, I think you can achieve even more than that.
You can not only share the Dropbox Family History folder, but also keep the local Media folder within each FH Project.

The main advantage of keeping the Media folder within Projects is that relative File Link paths are used, so when (not if) you need to move your Projects to a new PC those links will not get broken. If the File Link paths are absolute links to some external Dropbox folder, then after moving the Projects those links will almost inevitably become broken, and need repairing on the new PC.

The trick is to use Windows Directory Junctions that allow different folders to share the same physical disk folder.
See fhugdownloads:contents:windows_directory_junctions|> Utility ~ Windows Directory Junctions for details.
In your case the commands you would need to use would be similar to:
MKLINK /J "C:\Users\Chris\Documents\Family Historian Projects\Proj\Proj.fh_data\Media" "C:\Users\Chris\Dropbox\Family History"
where Proj is replaced by each Project Name in turn in each link folder, and target folder is your Dropbox media folder.

So physically all the media will be in the Dropbox folder structure, but FH will see each Media folder within its Project folders.

You could go one step further and only share a part of each FH Media folder between Projects and Dropbox.
i.e.
Most media files would remain physically in the Media folder, and only the Media\Dropbox folder would be shared via the Windows Directory Junctions by simply specifying "C:\Users\Chris\Documents\Family Historian Projects\Proj\Proj.fh_data\Media\Dropbox" as the target folder in each command above.

The same technique will probably work for other Family History programs.

[chris_searl]

Thanks for this Mike.

After I have digested the information I will see what I can go with a test project.

Chris

[PeterR]

There is also: fhugdownloads:contents:link_shell_extension|–> Utility ~ Link Shell Extension.

[chris_searl]

Mike

Thanks for your help I have successfully made that link.

The only problem I encountered was that I did not at first realize that before making the link I needed to delete the real Family Historian media folder.

Chris

[tatewise]

Chris, you would not have needed to delete anything if you had chosen to use the ...\Media\Dropbox sub-folder side-shoot approach. I presume you mean you emptied the Media folder contents, rather than actually delete the Media folder itself.

BTW: Since you now have identical Media files in every Project it begs the question: why not merge them all into one Project as there must be a great deal in common?

[chris_searl]

Mike, If you leave the media folder in the project you get a "cannot create a file when that file already exists" error (even when the file is a folder) so having ensured all data saved I did delete the folder.

"BTW: Since you now have identical Media files in every Project it begs the question: why not merge them all into one Project as there must be a great deal in common?"

I have all my data in one Project but also have sub sets in separate Projects

Chris

[tatewise]

After some experimenting I find you are correct, so the advice in fhugdownloads:contents:windows_directory_junctions|> Utility ~ Windows Directory Junctions to "Perform the following steps after the "{Link Folder Path}" exists" was incorrect, and I have updated it to say "Perform the following steps after the "{Link Folder Path}" exists except for the final folder name".