# Alias/Symbolic Link settings

Aliases and symbolic links are both special types of files that point to other files or directories. You may think of them as "placeholders" for the original items.

There are several different ways Synk can handle aliases:

- Synk can skip them altogether. No action will be performed regardless of its modification date or any other attribute.
- Synk can treat them as ordinary files. This means that Synk will ignore the fact that this is a "special" file which points elsewhere and will just analyze, copy, delete, and perform all other actions on the alias file itself. Note that this means that the data pointed to by the alias will not be copied or backed up, just the pointer to the data.
- Synk can resolve the alias to its target. In this case, Synk will act as if the data pointed to by the alias is actually present where the alias file is. This is the default behavior of the Finder view, for example, but should be used with care--it is possible to create infinite loops if an alias points to a folder which contains itself.

One backup strategy involves keeping a folder of aliases to the information you want to back up, so that backing up this one folder will back up all of your information. To support this, Synk includes the "Always resolve top-level aliases/links" option, which will resolve these aliases regardless of the general alias handling setting.

Keep in mind that not all filesystems support aliases and symbolic links. Learn more about compatibility.