arnobpl/symlinkcreator

A GUI app for creating symlinks, based on mklink

Symlink Creator

Symlink Creator is a GUI app for creating symbolic links (symlinks), and it is based on mklink command. You can create multiple symlinks at a time.

Use cases

• Suppose, you have a collection of several songs sorted by artists and albums on your PC. You might want a separate collection of your favorite songs which you will store on your mobile devices. In this scenario, the traditional shortcut option through the File Explorer right-click context menu is not enough, because you cannot copy the actual file contents by copying the traditional shortcut files (*.lnk). You might consider duplicating the files which you will store on your mobile devices. But it will waste the storage space of your PC. In this case, Symlink Creator will come in handy. You can easily create a separate collection of songs and transfer them to your mobile devices, without wasting your PC's storage space.

• Suppose, you have a special folder that is linked to your online storage like Google Drive. You might want some specific files/folders to be backed up from other folders. A traditional shortcut file is not helpful here to back up those files. In this scenario, you can use Symlink Creator for backup purposes without duplicating those files/folders in the special folder.

• Suppose, you play video games a lot and you have the Steam client to manage those games. You have set a non-system drive (say, D:) to download the games. But that non-system drive has slow read capacity but your system drive (say, C:) has SSD which is a lot faster to read. In that scenario, you can use Symlink Creator to save your favorite video games in the SSD so that you can load those games faster without changing any settings in the Steam client. Symlink Creator can create symlinks of the folders of video games in the slow non-system drive, but the game files are actually stored in the fast SSD.

What Symlink Creator does

Symlink Creator creates symlinks which is an NTFS feature. Unlike the traditional shortcut files (*.lnk), symlinks do not have any file size. While symlinks may be called advanced shortcut files, they appear to be real files. Unlike duplicated files, symlinks do not waste your storage space. Symlink Creator works for both files and folders.

How Symlink Creator works

Symlink Creator uses mklink command to create symlinks. Symlink Creator first creates a script file that contains mklink command lines and executes it. Symlink Creator works in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 10/11. It does not work in Windows XP because of the lack of the mklink command.

How to use Symlink Creator

• At the Source file or folder list, you can add files or folders which will be copied in the Destination path as symlinks.
• Using Symlink Creator's drag-n-drop feature, you can easily create multiple symlinks at a time.
• Tick the Use relative path if possible option to use relative paths while creating symlinks. In this case, relative paths will be used if both source files/folders and destination files/folders are in the same drive.
• Tick the Retain script file after execution option if you want to save the script file for later use like logging purposes.

Why Symlink Creator needs administrative rights

It has been stated before that Symlink Creator uses the mklink command to create symlinks. The mklink command requires administrative privilege to create symlinks. You can find more information here.

Donation

If you enjoy using Symlink Creator and also want to buy me a cup of tea, you are most welcome. You can send me a gift here: PayPal

Thank you for using Symlink Creator and sharing feedback. Happy Symlinking!

symlinkcreator's Issues

Error for incorrect file system type

Idea?
⌈¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯⌉
| |
|❌ Incorrect file system |
| Ok |
⌊__________________________ ⌋

Can't create a symlink with target path behaving like a root directory

So. I have the paths;
/documents/assets/3d models/
/documents/projects/game/assets/models/

When creating a symlink with this tool, the path I get is unable as it will be the equivalent of:
/documents/projects/game/assets/models/3d models/*.*

But I need the path to be the equivalent of:
/documents/projects/game/assets/models/*.*

I hope this makes sense as it would save me a ton of storage space not having to just copy the files over.

Can this be made to work in reverse?

Hi. Nice work. Could you please make this software work in reverse to the way it currently does?
Currently the "destination path" is where the symbolic link is placed, but I want all of the "source files" to be replaced by symbolic links that point to a single 'master file' that is moved to the destination path.

I have a folder structure like this:

|- folder1/duplicateFile.png
|- folder2/duplicateFile.png

But I would like to create a structure like this:

|- folder1/linkToOriginal.symlink
|- folder2/linkToOriginal.symlink
|- folder3/original.png

This way I can have a single 'master file' and the rest can be symbolic links so I can save space!

Create a TexBox for PATH

It should have a textbox where you can enter the path of a directory, because if the directory is hidden, such as "c:\Users\ulise\AppData\Roaming" it does not appear.

Why does this version add so many DLLs?

Is it really necessary to have DLLs like these?

Question: Retain script file - but where is it?

First, its a great little app.
There is a check box to enable retaining the script file after execution. If selected, where does the script file get stored?

SymLink Creator 1.2.2 triggering Malware Threat

When I try to run the executable, it is triggering a threat warning within Windows Defender.

It is giving warning for Trojan:Win32/Sabsik.FL.B!ml and I am not willing to run at this time. Likely this is a false-positive, but...

Is it possible to just create a short cut (.lnk) other than a .symlink?

Thank you for this helpful app, but there is a case where only a shortcut (.lnk) can work:

Say I wanna keep the reference relationship between two files( SouceA, LinkB ) within a folder synced by a cloud server eg, OneDrive. If LinkB is a symbol link to SouceA, OneDrive and any other sync tools will take it just as SouceA and upload it as SourceA! Then on the cloud server, there would be only SouceA, not just a reference link LinkB. And as I tested with OneDrive, things would become worse if LinkB and SourceA share the same filename ( as your app does ): OneDrive would keep up-downloading SourceA! But if LinkB is a shortcut, this can be evitable as OneDrive just upload it as a .lnk file.

Athough shortcuts don't support relative pathname natively, I found some workarounds like https://superuser.com/questions/644407/using-relative-paths-for-windows-shortcuts and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1169556/making-a-windows-shortcut-start-relative-to-where-the-folder-is
by adding some parameters into shortcut properties.

Can these workarounds be taken into your app to create shortcuts with relative pathname supported?

[REQ] Add the option to make hard links instead of symbolic

Hey,

Great piece of software, thanks.
Please would you consider adding an option to create hard links (mklink /h), perhaps by adding a tick box above/below the "retain script file after execution" and once ticked change the 'Create symlinks' button to 'Create hard links'?

See what you think.
Many thanks.

better browse for folder

First of all
Thank you for create this useful tool
I only have one suggestion that a better browser window.
Current browser doesnt allow to paste path which faster to create

And maybe a drag folder/file to the folder/file source list could be really helpful

Thank you for reading this

Nice app, but hope to have Chinese version

Symlink script returned with an error

Hello,
I was trying to find an app/script that'd let me move unused apps/folders to my HDD when I found your repo. Tried using the release 1.2.5 but when moving anything I get a "Simlink script return with an error" :

(in the screenshot tried moving the app itself but tried with other things too)

I tried moving a folder and a file, tried moving to same drive or different drive, running as administrator. Any idea what it could be ?
Windows 11 Pro 23H2

Thanks for your help,
Côme

Add Symlink Trail

(Feature Request) Add a text file in a folder in the Source Directory which contains the Destination Directory path.

The Folder structure can be such:
Folder "Symlink Trail" > filename.txt > "destination_path(s)/filename"

Each filename will have different text file, so we can see where all the symlinks for this specific file were created
This will be useful to keep track of symlinks and delete them when we delete the original files...

Further up, we can also have a function to auto delete symlinks if the file is not present/deleted in source directory.

When adding a second folder, the path of previous selection should be pre-selected

I have multiple folders in one path that I want to create a link for. Each time I need to navigate down the whole path. It would be nice to have the previous path pre-selected when the next folder is selected.

Otherwise, it would be helpful to set the path manually via copy&paste.

No error message for non existant paths

A small suggestion

This is a great program! Thanks for making it.
I have a few suggestions to improve it's functionality.

1. When selecting folders allow it to select multiple folders at once. (right now you have to add 1 by 1)
2. Save history or allow it to import a previous script we saved (maybe importing it is easier to implement?).