Look at the folder structure of a typical OS X installation. Open a Finder window and click the icon for your hard drive (which is typically called Macintosh HD) in the Sidebar. You should see at least four folders: Applications, Library, System, and Users. Within the Users folder, each user has his own set of folders containing documents, preferences, and other information that belongs to that user and account.
- What Is In The Mac Hard Drive Library File Size
- What Is In The Mac Hard Drive Library File Download
- What Is In The Mac Hard Drive Library File Size
From the top: The Computer folder
The Computer folder shows all the storage devices that are currently connected to your Mac. The following steps show how you can start at the Computer folder and drill down through the folder structure:
To find the Computer folder, choose Go→Computer or press Shift+Command+C.
The Computer folder in this example is called Bob L’s MacBook Pro, and it contains a hard-drive icon (Mavericks HD) and a Network icon, with which you can access servers or other computers on your local network.
Double-click the icon that holds your OS X stuff.
Technically, this drive is called your boot drive. If you haven’t changed it, it’s probably called Macintosh HD.
Check out the folders you find there.
You should see at least four folders (unless you’ve added some; if you installed the Xcode programming tools, for example, you have more).
- Jul 22, 2011 Fortunately, this is easy to reverse and if you wish you can switch the behavior and instead show Library all the time with a quick terminal command. This tutorial will detail four different ways to access the User Library folder in Mac OS X from Mt Lion and beyond.
- Jan 12, 2020 The Library folder contains many of the resources that installed applications need to use, including application preferences, application support documents, plug-in folders, and ever since OS X Lion, the files that describe the saved state of applications.
- Nov 09, 2012 The Library folder at the root level of your hard drive is a public ‘library’ of data that is required for all users of the Mac. The Library folder within the System folder is critical for the operation of your Mac. Don’t ever remove, rename or otherwise move this directory in any way. Leave it alone!
The Applications folder
You can access the Applications folder, located at the root level of your boot drive, by clicking the Applications icon in the Sidebar, by choosing it in the Go menu, or by pressing Shift+Command+A. In this folder, you find applications and utilities that Apple includes with OS X.
Fonts (and more) in the public Library folder
The beautiful thing about Macs, in comparison to Windows, is that apps lack an installation process with files going to different areas of your hard drive. They all stay compiled into one 'App' file. Taking advantage of this, we can move all of our hefty apps and support files over to an external drive to free up space on the built-in drive. Jun 28, 2007 I can't back up my windows files while in Vista as my external hard drive is no picked up as a device through Parallels. It is a firewire drive. If I put it on USB, I can access it, but not while using the firewire connection. If I can just locate where the files are located, then I can back up my Mac files including the windows files. Jun 04, 2019 Move photos, files, and mail from Mac to Surface. Content provided by Microsoft. Connect the external hard drive to a USB port on your Mac and a power source (if required). You don’t need to copy the Photo Library folder in Pictures if you already moved your photos over.
The Library folder, at the root level of your OS X hard drive, is like a public library; it stores items available to everyone who logs into any account on this Mac.
Import files to your Mac from a hard drive. If your new Mac is a replacement for an older Mac, or you’re switching from a Windows PC, the odds are that you’ve accumulated a library of documents, photos, videos and files that you’d like to move onto your new Mac.
Leave the /System/Library folder alone.Don’t move, remove, or rename it, or do anything within it. It’s the nerve center of your Mac. In other words, you should never have to touch this third Library folder.
By and large, the public Library subfolder that gets the most use is the Fonts folder, which houses many of the fonts installed on the Mac
Finally, the Library in the Users folder is where OS X stores configuration and preferences files shared by all users.
If your Mac is set up for multiple users, only users with administrator (admin) privileges can put stuff in the public (root-level) Library folder.
The System folder
The System folder contains the files that OS X needs to start up and keep working.
Leave the System folder alone.Don’t move, remove, or rename it or anything within it. It’s part of the nerve center of your Mac.
The usability of the Users folder
When you open the Users folder, you see a folder for each person who has a user account on the Mac, as well as the Shared folder.
The Shared folder that you see inside the Users folder allows everyone who uses the Mac to use any files stored there. If you want other people who use your Mac to have access to a file or folder, the Shared folder is the proper place to stash it.
There’s no place like Home
From the Users folder, you can drill down into the Home folder to see what’s inside. When the user logs on to this Mac, his Home folder appears whenever he clicks the Home icon in the Sidebar, chooses Go→Home, or uses the keyboard shortcut Shift+Command+H.
Your Home folder is the most important folder for you as a user — or at least the one where you stash most of your files. It is strongly recommend that you store all the files you create in subfolders within your Home folder — preferably, in subfolders in your Home/Documents folder.
When you open your Home folder, you see a Finder window with a little house icon and your short username in the title bar. Seeing your short username in the title bar tells you that you’re in your Home folder. Every user has a Home folder named after his or her short username.
If your Mac has more than one user, you can see the other users’ Home folders in your Users folder, but OS X prevents you from opening files from or saving files to them.
By default, your Home folder has several folders inside it created by OS X. The following four are the most important:
Desktop: If you put items (files, folders, applications, or aliases) on the Desktop, they’re actually stored in the Desktop folder.
Documents: This is the place to put all the documents (letters, spreadsheets, recipes, and novels) that you create.
Library: This Library folder is invisible in Mavericks. Rest assured that even though it’s hidden, it’s still one of the most important folders in your Home folder, containing Preferences, fonts available only to you, and other stuff that you expect to use.
Public: If others on your local area network use file sharing to connect with your Mac, they can’t see or use the files or folders in your Home folder, but they can share files you’ve stored in your Home folder’s Public folder.
You can create more folders, if you like. In fact, every folder that you ever create (at least every one you create on this particular hard drive or volume) should be within your Home folder.
Free up your space by transferring your Photos library to another external hard drive. By freeing up space you will have valuable space for your work on your Mac. In addition to this, we will help you to back up your whole photo library to iCloud.
Why store photos on external drive
What Is In The Mac Hard Drive Library File Size
In today’s world, everyone loves to capture photos of every single moment and wants to save all those moments in his/her personal devices like Mac. But saving all your photos can fill-up your Mac storage quickly and you may face the shortage of space.
There are many options to store your photos data. One of them to store your photos on iCloud photo library but the drawback of saving your photos on iCloud is, if you delete the photo from your device it will be deleted from iCloud as well.
One question raised up here is that what we can do to store all our photos to some safe place if we are running out of space on Mac?
Fortunately, you have visited the right place to find the solution to your problem. There is a safer and easy way to transfer your entire photo library from your Mac to your external drive. The best of this trick is whenever you need to see your photos on your Mac you just need to open photo library app on your Mac it will automatically take you to your saved photos in external hard drive until unless it is plugged in.
Snapshot of the guide
There is a quick snapshot of the guide so you can understand quickly how to move the library to external drive.
- Prepare your external hard drive to move Photo Library. Make sure drive is formatted as MacOS Extended Journaled.
- Go to the location of the Photo library and move it to external drive.
- Set the external library as a System Photo Library (So whenever you open the Photos app it will open the photos library from the external hard drive.)
- After completing trasfer to drive, make sure this external drive is connected to your Mac whenever you want to access photos.
Our article will help you to move your photos from Mac to external hard drive. Continue reading the steps are about to start.
Do not worry if you have already stored your photos on iCloud photo library. Our article will help you to get back your already saved photos in iCloud photos library and will help you to move them to external hard drive. Here is how to do it.
System Photo Library vs Other Library
When you run Photos app on your Mac first time this will ask you to create a new or use an old library. That default Photo library became the system library automatically. Only System Photo Library are allowed to access iCloud services.
You can create multiple other libraries and work with photos only in one library at a time. To work in another library you have to switch the library. You can also change and set one of the other libraries as a System library.
How to transfer the Photos library to a hard drive
First, make it sure the hard drive you are going to use for Photos library is faster and have enough space. It will save your time and stored your memories quickly. A good hard drive always keeps your stuff secure and there are fewer chances of losing your data.
Before going step by step to move your photo library to external hard, first make it sure that your external hard drive is already formatted for Mac OS Extended (journaled). If it is not formatted for Mac first erase all the data from it and format and choose the option of Mac OS Extended (journaled). Use the Disk Utility on your Mac to erase any hard drive (When you erase any drive in mac everything will be deleted, so please save any important data ).
- Find the Photos Library on your Mac, it will be in your Pictures folder. Click the Go menu on the top and then select Home option from the menu.
- Open the Pictures folder and there you will find the Photos library.
TIP: In order to see how much storage your photos have taken, just Ctrl+Click on the photos library icon and click on Get Info. Now you can make sure that you have enough storage in your external hard drive. - It’s time to copy your Photos Library to your external hard drive using drag and drop trick. Now sit back and wait until copies over. The time of transferring photos depends on the size of your Photo Library.
- When transferred completed, press and hold the Option/Alt key from keyboard and click the Photos app icon from Dock to open it. Keep holding the keyboard key until you see a window otherwise this will open the Photos app.
- You will see a new window to choose the library. On that window hit the button Other library. Navigate to the new location on your external hard drive and choose the Photo Library.
- If there is a message that shows “there are some items that need to be downloaded from iCloud Photo library” then you need to click on delete incomplete items and download all those incomplete items.
Set a photo library as System Photo Library
We have already moved the library to an external drive now its time to set it as System Photo Library. Doing that will allow it to use iCloud service.
- Open the Photo Library from the external drive.
- Click Photos men and then select the Preferences option.
- On the next window click General and then click Use as System Photo Library button (this will help you to get it to work with iCloud Photo Library)
TIP: Remember this is the step you need to perform in future If you accidentally unlinked the external drive’s photo library from the Photos app. - Go to System Preferences then iCloud then Photos then Options, and choose iCloud Photo Library to turn that back on. See if you have stored all the photos here.
Note: you will need to plug in your external hard drive in order to see your photos).
Delete Photo Library from Mac
Once you have confirmed that all the photos in the library moved to the external drive. You can delete the Photo Library from your Mac computer. Go to the Pictures folder and delete it to free up space from your mac.
How to back up your iCloud Photo Library
If you want to move all your photos which you have already backed up to your iCloud photo library to a storage device connected to your Mac. Follow our step by step guide above, but you need to download all the images from iCloud first.
What Is In The Mac Hard Drive Library File Download
If you have already transferred your Photos library onto the external storage device, now you need to follow these steps.
- Open Photos on your Mac.
- Click Photos then click on Preferences.
- Click on the iCloud tab.
- Choose Download originals to this Mac.
What Is In The Mac Hard Drive Library File Size
Now all your iCloud photos will be saved on the storage device. (If you are running short of space you would probably not want to do that)
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