# Copying file or serving from \_data
**URL:** https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/copying-file-or-serving-from-data/7384
**Category:** Help
**Created:** [May 29, 2022, 11:43pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/copying-file-or-serving-from-data/7384 "2022-05-29T23:43:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@benui-dev](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/benui-dev)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2022, 11:43pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/copying-file-or-serving-from-data/7384/1 "2022-05-29T23:43:50Z")
I have a Git Submodule that contains both yaml files and images. I would like to use it within my GitHub pages Jekyll project but I’m not sure how.
I’m used to putting YAML files in `_data` and images in `assets`. Is there a way to configure Jekyll to parse yaml in another directory? or copy static files from somewhere in \_data?
---
### Author:  [@chuckhoupt](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/chuckhoupt)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/copying-file-or-serving-from-data/7384/2 "2022-05-30T12:31:23Z")
I believe you can change the data directory with the `data_dir` option in `_config.yml`. See [Configuration Defaults](https://jekyllrb.com/docs/configuration/default/) for details.
Another option might be to use symbolic links, but I’m not sure how well that works with Github Pages.
---
### Author:  [@benui-dev](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/benui-dev)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2022, 5:12pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/copying-file-or-serving-from-data/7384/3 "2022-05-30T17:12:26Z")
I saw that one too, but if I change my data dir, I figured it would just work the same as the default \_data directory in that static files won’t be served from there.
For symbolic links, [this page seems to imply that they work on GitHub pages](https://github.com/chetabahana/symlink) but other docs for Jekyll seem to say that they are disabled in “safe mode” and GitHub pages.
I tried creating a symlink on windows and running the server but got an error:
```auto
mklink /D assets\unreal\specifiers UE-Specifier-Docs\images
...
bundle exec jekyll serve --trace
...
C:/Ruby26-x64/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/gems/jekyll-4.2.2/lib/jekyll/utils.rb:141:in `initialize': Is a directory @ rb_sysopen - C:/Ben/personalsite2/assets/unreal/specifiers (Errno::EISDIR)
```