Switch to a case-sensitive file system on Mac OS

By default, Mac OS uses a case-insensitive file system to support compatibility with applications (for example, Photoshop) provided for the operating system. The file system itself is capable of working in a case-sensitive mode. There are three options on how to change case sensitivity:

1. Repartition the entire hard drive with case sensitivity turned on.
2. Create a new partition and re-format only this new partition with the case-sensitive file system.
3. Create a disk image, format that image with the case-sensitive file system, and mount this disk image.

Options 1 and 2 require tampering with an existing hard drive that contains your operating system. Option 3 is the least destructive and requires minimal effort.

Create the disk image

You can use Mac OS’ Disk Utility application to create a disk image. You create a growing image with decent size, so you don’t waste any hard drive space but still keep enough room for many projects.

1. Open Disk Utility by opening Spotlight (Cmd + Space) and entering disk utility.
2. Select File > New Image > Blank Image.
3. Enter a file name for the disk image—for example, case-sensitive-file-system.
4. Select the place to store the image—for example, your home folder.
5. Enter a name for the image—for example, workspace. This name is shown in Finder when the image is mounted.
   We recommend having matching names for the mount point and disk image name. This way, Finder displays it nicely. For your local setup, use workspace as the image’s name and mount-point.
6. Enter a decent value for the size so the image can accommodate all your projects—for example, 100GB.
7. Select the format: Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).
8. You can leave encryption and partitions as is.
9. Select the image format: Sparse. Note that sometimes, changing the image format resets the setting for image size.

The resulting dialog looks as follows:

After the disk has been created, you can see it being mounted in Finder already.

Copy existing projects

You can copy all existing projects to the newly created box. If it is not mounted, double-click the disk image file in Finder. After copying all your projects, you can replace your current project directory with the mount-point for the disk image so that you don’t have to adjust any paths you already set up. For details, see the following section.

mount the disk image at boot automatically

To avoid manually mounting the disk image every time you restart your system, create a Launch Agent that can take care of this.

To create a Launch Agent, follow these steps:

1. Create a new file for the definition of the Launch Agent under—for example, ~Library/LaunchAgents/local.mount-case-sensitive-file-system.plist.

vim ~Library/LaunchAgents/local.mount-case-sensitive-file-system.plist

2. Place the following content inside the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
       <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>local.mount-case-sensitive-file-system</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>hdiutil</string>
            <string>attach</string>
            <string>[ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_DISK_IMAGE]</string>
            <string>-mountpoint</string>
            <string>[ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_MOUNT_POINT]</string>
            <string>-nobrowse</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</plist>

Put in some values for [ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_DISK_IMAGE] (for example, /Users/joeaverage/case-sensitive-file-system.sparseimage) and [ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_MOUNT_POINT] (for example, /Users/joeaverage/workspace). Also, make sure that the mount-point folder exists and is empty.

Configure PhpStorm

The first time you open one of the projects from the disk image, you may notice a warning about case-sensitive file systems. PhpStorm for Mac OS is configured to work with a case-insensitive file system and reports a warning if it detects a case-sensitive file system. Unfortunately, there is no way to configure PhpStorm on a per-project level, but you can let PhpStorm know that all your projects are stored in a case-sensitive file system.

To let PhpStorm know that all your projects are stored in a case-sensitive file system, follow these steps:

1. In PHPStorm, go to Help > Edit Custom Properties.
2. Add the idea.case.sensitive.fs=true option.
3. Save and close.

For more information, see Filesystem Case-Sensitivity Mismatch.