Where are the files?

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I searched and couldn't find an answer. I know where all of the program files are in Windows, but I don't know where they are in Mac OSX. How do I view them?

Thanks,
Damien

Applications in your applications folder are actually just packages. If, for some awkward reason, you need to peek inside the packages, you can right-click on an application an choose "Show package contents".

Apps also keep some minor preference files and other stuff in the library, but they're not really meant to be tampered with? Why do you want to access the files in the first place?

Just curious how my computer works! Where are the preference files and other stuff in the library? I promise I won't tamper with them and break anything.

Thundermoon1994 said:

I promise I won't tamper with them and break anything.

Click to expand...

Well, I dunno. . . . Oh, all right.

The apps in the Applications folder are disguised folders full of application files, as yogi says, so if you decide to uninstall one, most of the program goes into the trash in one fell swoop.

Where are the preference files and other stuff in the library?

Click to expand...

There are three (count 'em, 3) libraries, which probably will add to any confusion.

The library that probably most affects you is the one in your home folder, inside the users folder.

The hard drive or partition also has its own library. Click on the hard-drive icon to open it, and you'll see that library folder.

The System folder also has it's own library. But everything inside that library is write protected, so you can ignore it.

A Macintosh convention in writing file pathways is to use the tilde (~) symbol to signify the user's library, not the hard-drive library. If the ~ is not there, the pathway refers to the hard-drive library.

So, ~/library/preferences

means the preferences folder inside your home-folder library.

/library/preferences

means the preferences folder inside the hard-drive library folder.

Inside the preferences folder are plist files, or preference list files. These are text files and can be opened and read with TextEdit. If an application repeatedly crashes or repeatedly does something else it shouldn't, chances are the app's plist file is corrupt. It's safe to trash plist files; the app will write a new one the next time it starts, but you'd have to change the app from its default settings again.

These plist files are among the few small files that aren't deleted when you trash an app.

Thanks a lot for that great post. It's very interesting how that is set up. That is very nice (USER FRIENDLY) how almost everything is in one folder that also functions as the ICON for the program. No uninstall apps are required.

~Damien