Been meaning to ask this for a while… When I put files in a specific folder and then use add Linker to add them to the community folder, I’ve noticed that I have 2 files/folders with the same size. Is this the correct setup? I’m basically duplicating the size of each add-on and running out of disk space quickly.
Do you mean two folders, one in the original location, and one in the Community folder where you linked it?
If so, that is normal, and exactly how its supposed to work. The sim will think the folder is actually in the Community folder when its not.
It’ akin to you creating a shortcut on your desktop that points a Word document in your Documents folder. There is only one file, but it looks like its in two places at once.
If you are really curious, have a read of this page:
Thanks, I’ll take a look at that document. What I mean is if I have an add-on XYZ that is 50 megs on my ‘C: add on’ and and activate it with add-on Linker, there will be the same file XYZ in the community that is also 50 MB. So if I have 20 files like that, and it’s creating the same file size in 2 different folders, I’m running at a room fast.
no don’t worry, it’s like hobanagerik said, the files are only once on your system. It’s just that those ‘links’ are seen by the system like if they were real folders so if you do ‘right click → properties’ on the ‘destination folder link’ it will tell you that it is 50mb but in reality it takes 0 bytes.
Better way to understand this with a concrete example. Let’s say you have a photogrammetry addon that is 1GB in size with 10’000 individual files. When you link via AL, if the files were duplicated, it would take a lot of time and harddrive activity to copy and duplicate all the files from your source folder to your destination folder. If you do that with AL you will see that the operation will be instantaneous because no file is copied, no file is created, the system just creates a link in the destination folder that points back to your source folder. So with AL you would be able to activate/deactive that huge addon in a few milliseconds, if the files were copied it would take several minutes each time.
well not sure if it’s more clear 
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Got it. When my community folder got wiped last week with the bad fs2024 update, my C drive increased in size. This is what brought me to ask. Once i relinked, free space lowered again.