We have previously looked at using dired for managing files and switching dired into writeable mode for renaming multiple files. Here is a related tip to redirect symbolic links in dired.

Suppose you moved some data from one location to another and ended up with a bunch of broken symbolic links, you can easily edit those links to point to the new path. In the example below, I have links pointing to files in /old/path and I want the to point to files in /new/dir instead, so I do the following

• Use C-x d to enter dired and choose the directory with the files in
• Use C-x C-q to turn dired into editing mode. You can then edit the file names by hand or
• Use multiple cursors to edit the links in one go (you could also use e.g. M-% to do a query-replace). This changes the path of the links.
• Use C-c C-c so apply the changes, or C-c C-k to cancel

This is illustrated in the following animation.

This is just great – it feels like magic every time!