HOM 12: Inside the Mac Filesystem

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What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!

Hi @Leo, thanks for this video. A few questions:

  1. Why is this an Application Support folder? Wouldn’t it just be easier and more tidy to have everything related to that application in the Application itself (the stuff you see when you Ctrl-Click the application)?
  2. Why do Apple’s main app show up in both the top Applications folder AND the System/Applications folder? Are those application actually duplicated on the Mac?

Thanks,

Tony

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These come from the overall approach of Unix, where there are resources set for everyone and resources set for each user.

The Applications folder on the root level of the dIsk contains apps all users can use, the applications folder inside each user folder is for that user specifically,

The Application Support folder inside the users Library folder contains items that each user has set. Items within it can be changed or deleted with no harm. Mucking around inside an application package introduces too much potential for damage, no opportunity for settings for multiple users and would trigger security concerns re potential malware etc.

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