New user? Can't figure out the basics? Add it here - what you wanted, what you tried.

I wanted to keep track of some files I had all organized in a directory outside of my ~/annex:

$ cd ~/annex
$ git annex add /path/to/some/photos
fatal: '/path/to/some/photos' is outside repository

But git-annex doesn't work that way. I had to do this instead

$ rsync -a /path/to/some/photos
$ git annex add photos
(Recording state in git...)
$ git annex status
... lots of helpful info...

I just have the OS/X app, can I do commandline stuff?

yes

$ /Applications/git-annex.app/Contents/MacOS/git-annex add photos/
(Recording state in git...)

but perhaps there is a better way.