How to fix public storage link already exists in Laravel 10?

In Laravel 10 when you run

php artisan storage:link

if you encounter an issue where your storage directory is already linked and exist, it usually means that the symbolic link from the storage directory to the public/storage directory already exists. Laravel typically creates this symbolic link during the installation process to allow easy access to uploaded files.

How to fix The [public/storage] link already exists?

To resolve this issue, you have a few options:

Delete the Existing Symbolic Link:

You can manually delete the existing symbolic link and then recreate it using the php artisan storage:link command. Here are the steps:

Open your terminal or command prompt.

Navigate to the root directory of your Laravel project.

Delete the existing symbolic link by running:

rm public/storage

Recreate the symbolic link by running:

php artisan storage:link

This command will create a new symbolic link from the public/storage directory to the storage/app/public directory.

Check for Permission Issues: If you are still facing issues, it might be related to file permissions. Ensure that the directories and files in the storage and public/storage directories have appropriate read and write permissions for the web server user (usually www-data or nginx). You can use the chmod command to adjust permissions if necessary.

Manually Create the Symbolic Link: If the php artisan storage:link command does not work for some reason, you can manually create the symbolic link using the ln command:

Open your terminal.

Navigate to your project's root directory.

Run the following command:

ln -s ../storage/app/public public/storage

This command creates a symbolic link from public/storage to storage/app/public.

After performing one of these actions, you should be able to access your storage files via the public/storage URL without encountering the "already linked" error. Make sure to clear your browser cache if you were previously experiencing issues.