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Just like the title states, I want to make all my files on my Windows partition native to my Ubuntu partition.

Right now, I can access all my documents, pictures, etc. while in Ubuntu by:

  1. Clicking on "Files" on the launcher.
  2. Clicking on "OS" on the left-hand side.
  3. Clicking on "Users".
  4. Clicking on the appropriate windows user folder and, viola, all my files are there for me to access.

To be clearer, I want to make it so that I:

  1. Click on "Files" on the launcher.
  2. Click "Documents", "Pictures", etc.

and the appropriate files (that are already on my Windows partition) are there for me to access.

Why I want to have all my old files in Ubuntu natively:

  • In case something happens to my Windows partition
  • I may get rid of Windows in the future.

I know I can put all my files on an external drive and put them into Ubuntu from there or copy them from the OS and just paste them into Ubuntu's file system, but I want to know if there's a dedicated file transfer system between partitions or something.

This question is less one of work around solutions and more an investigative one in which I'm curious to know if a native dedicated solution exists already.

Copy them from the OS is pretty simple, I'm just curious if Ubuntu has a dedicated method.

I look forward to your help :)

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  • 1
    ....Couldn't you just copy/paste them from Windows to Ubuntu?
    – user323419
    May 15, 2016 at 2:12
  • Repartition your hard drive so that you have 3 partitions. One for Ubuntu, one for Windows, and one just for file storage. May 15, 2016 at 2:15
  • This is a really good question, and I'll try to get back here tomorrow and provide a proper answer. May 15, 2016 at 2:18
  • @AndroidDev I'm doing an answer now. May 15, 2016 at 2:19
  • Consider the word 'native' you have 2 dissimilar file systems where Ubuntu can read and write to NTFS just fine, however if you make the files native that implies to me that you want them stored on an Ubuntu file system - if that's the case Windows will no longer even be able to read them. Perhaps you should consider symbolic links from Ubuntu to Windows.
    – pfeiffep
    May 15, 2016 at 2:21

2 Answers 2

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This is possible, but somewhat tricky, as it involves shortcuts.

Set your Windows partition to mount at startup

  1. Search for and open "Disks".
  2. Find your Windows partition here (the NTFS one), and click the gear icon.
  3. Choose Edit Mount Options...
  4. Enable Automatic Mount Options and uncheck Show in User Interface. Also leave the 3 fields in that section blank.
    • Make sure Mount at startup is checked.
  5. In the Mount Point field, choose a path for the partition to mount to.
    • /media/YOURUSERNAME/windows should work fine.
  6. Choose NTFS for the filesystem type.
  7. Apply the changes.

Source:

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2014/07/mount-partitions-automatically-ubuntu-14-04/

Set up the shortcuts

This part is the tricky one, since it involves deleting or renaming your current Ubuntu folders.

  1. Reboot to make sure the Windows partition is mounted as it will be from now on.
  2. Go to your Home folder and rename or delete any of the folders you want to reflect what Windows has.
    • If you have any files in the folders that will be deleted, move them to the Windows folders.
  3. Now, browse to the Windows partition and go to your user folder there.
  4. Right click the folders you want to mirror and select Make Link.
  5. Cut (Ctrl+X) the links and paste them into your Ubuntu Home directory.
  6. Remove everything extra from the links so that you are left with their original names (Downloads, Documents, etc.).
    • If Windows has the folder named My Pictures or My Documents, remove the "My" as well.

I have done this (it's my current setup) and can confirm it works if done correctly. It's a bit of an ugly method, but it does work quite nicely, and I haven't had problems so far.


If you need any help, just comment.


EDIT:

To address your edit:

No, I do not believe there is a native method for Ubuntu to change the location where it looks for certain folders. I know in Windows it's possible to change the location of user folders such as Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Music and so on.

However, I haven't found something like this in Ubuntu. Even if it does exist, I highly doubt it would have any sort of support for NTFS.

You could always install ext2fsd on Windows and then set the Windows folder locations to their corresponding locations on Ubuntu. This is still a workaround, however. It's a little more integrated, yes, but ext2fsd doesn't always work. For that reason, I recommend not trying it this way.

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  • Very thorough. I'm glad you commented before I went to work drafting this up in Word :) May 15, 2016 at 2:28
  • @AndroidDev lol, well glad I could spare the effort ;) May 15, 2016 at 2:29
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If you're looking to migrate user folders from Windows to Ubuntu, there is no simple one-click method or tool for this. You can permanently mount the Windows directories as your user directories as explained in Zacharee1's answer, but that will not cover you if what you stated in your question happens. If something happens to your Windows partition, or if you decided to get rid of Windows later on (yay for you!), you would lose those files (not yay).

I would suggest taking the advice to automount that NTFS partition at start-up as stated in the other answer, but then I would diverge from there. Instead, save the following script somewhere in your home directory, such as /home/<USER>/winsync:

#!/bin/bash
rsync -avz /path/to/windows/pictures /home/<USER>/Pictures
rsync -avz /path/to/windows/videos /home/<USER>/Videos
rsync -avz /path/to/windws/documents /home/<USER>/Documents

Obviously, make the appropriate changes and then do a chmod +x /home/<USER>/winsync. Then, just add that script to your start-up apps through the Start Up Applications application. This script will copy over the data from your Windows user to your Ubuntu user each time you log-in to Ubuntu. However, because it's an rsync and not a cp, it will only copy over new/modified data. That way you don't have to worry about manually copying them over each time a change is made in Windows and you go back to Ubuntu. Now, even if you decided to get rid of Windows, your files will be safe.

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