Mist: OSX data location other than ~/Library to exclude chaindata from TimeMachine Backup

[PacketSmuggler]

My OSX Mist install writes its data here:

/Users/me/Library/Ethereum

du -m
12347   ./chaindata
1   ./dapp
1   ./keystore
6   ./nodes
12352   .

When backing up using Time Machine it treats ~/Library as part of the system, it's not visible in the Exclude/Include dialog, and therefore it's not possible to exclude this 12 gig of content which really doesn't need to be backed up. We should have the option of using a location other than ~/Library to store our data, or at least the chaindata.

---

Node type: geth/eth
OS: osx
Network type: main
Mist version: 0.8.0

[luclu]

You are right @PacketSmuggler this is rather unfortunate. ~/Library is ought to be a configuration folder.
On the other hand many vendors of for example cgi software - where built-in assets easily bubble up to several GBs - also use this folder.

Unfortunately this is unlikely to change as the chaindata's folder is subject to the node and this convention is shared accross all OS.

Luckily there are two easy workarounds for this:

1. show ~/Library in the Finder via this command: chflags nohidden ~/Library and exclude it from TimeMachine
2. change geth's data folder via these flags passed to Mist

[Barthelemy]

If one wants to exclude only the chain-data and not the whole Library folder, they can mv ~/Library/Ethereum/chain-data to a visible folder (e.g. $HOME) and symlink to it from there. Then, one can exclude the chain-data folder from Time Machine.

// Start by quitting Ethereum-wallet
cd $someplaceVisibleToTM
mv ~/Library/Ethereum/ .
ln -s $someplaceVisibleToTM/chaindata ~/Library/Ethereum
// now exclude $someplaceVisibleToTM/chaindata from TM

[lock[bot]]

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