Alias (Mac OS)

Alias (Mac OS)

In Mac OS System 7 and later, an alias is a small file that represents another object in a local, remote, or removable file system and provides a dynamic link to it; the target object may be moved or renamed, and the alias will still link to it (unless the original file is recreated; such an alias is ambiguous and how it is resolved depends on the version of OS X). In Windows, the same function is performed with a "shortcut" (a file with a .lnk extension).

It is similar to the Unix symbolic link, but with the added benefit of working even if the target file moves to another location on the same disk (in this case it acts like hard link, but the source and target of the link may be on different filesystems). As a descendant of BSD, OS X supports Unix symbolic (and hard) links as well.