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[drdudj]

As stated in previous posts, i'm a 26 year windows user who in january 2021 purchased my first mac, MacBook Air M1, and have been slowly learning the nuisances between windows and mac. the past couple of days i've been reading up on the "home/user" folder in Finder. when i first opened Finder after reading an article about where to find your Home folder, mine wasn't there. so i then went to Finder preferences and clicked on my user name and the Home folder appeared in the left pane of Finder.

upon further reading of the article, the Home folder is suppose to have the following sub folders; applications, desktop, documents, downloads, movies, music, pictures and there were others listed there that i assume the person writing the article created for themselves to be in their home folder. i also assume that i can create my own sub folders to place in the home folder. but that's not the question.

my home folder has only the following sub-folders; downloads, movies, music, pictures, public, and then 2 individual photos not in a folder. am i suppose to, or is it user preference, that i move other folders that show up in "favorites" to my "home" folder? like the application folder, desktop, and documents?

 

[DeltaMac]

Sometimes you will discover that you have folders in your user folder that are hidden.
Use the keyboard shortcut to make those visible: Shift-Command-period
You should see the "Library" folder appear, for one. There will likely to be others that are hidden.
You should also see the Desktop folder. It's where anything on your desktop is stored, and is a special folder, also one folder where you can go to make your desktop much simpler to manage. (Sometimes you might copy a bunch of files from one folder to another, and something happens, leaving you with dozens of files (maybe even hundreds or thousands) suddenly get dropped on the desktop. Knowing where the Desktop folder is located in your User folder can make that "cleanup" task much simpler, instead of trying to sort through enormous piles of icons. You can't make the desktop show files in list view - but, you CAN do list view when you have the Desktop FOLDER open!

Favorites folder keeps track of, well, your commonly used folders. Normally, that favorites folder only shows links to those folders, which are actually located somewhere else: Right-click on any item in the Favorites folder, and choose "Show Original" in the drop-down menu that appears. That's where that folder actually lives.

 

[NoBoMac]

Re: Applications: the one in Favorites is the system Applications folder (ie. Mac's C:\Program Files), so leave that in your Favorites for easy access to all your installed programs.

You cannot move items from Favorites, only remove from Favorites or add to (Select & hold item, drag to Favorites).

 

[drdudj]

thanks, understanding it some what better. after i did the "shift-command-period" in my "home/user" folder, some folders showed up, some normal blue, others faded blue, what's the difference?

 

[Honza1]

What about finding on Apple.com some of the intro pages for macOS and watch the movies or read pages? I googled macos getting started and ton of pages, at Apple, showed up. It will be faster and more efficient for you than asking your questions. I have been using macos/OSX for 30 years and still, when they come with new features I watch the movies they provide. It is just more convenient.
And I am sure there is lots of movies on Youtube.
It's not that people here will not help you, they will, but it will take lots of time.

 

[fisherking]

you have desktop & documents on in the cloud (which is useless, unless you're sharing data in those folders with another apple device). but don't just remove them! IF you want that content solely on your mac, copy those files to some new folders, then disable... them move that content into the now-available 'documents' & onto your desktop (there may be an easier path to this, i've never done it).

applications folder usually pops up with installations of an app like chrome, it's not there by default. and move those 'loose' folders to either the Photos app (where they'll be copied, then you can delete from the 'finder', or... move them wherever you want.

 

[drdudj]

you have desktop & documents on in the cloud (which is useless, unless you're sharing data in those folders with another apple device). but don't just remove them! IF you want that content solely on your mac, copy those files to some new folders, then disable... them move that content into the now-available 'documents' & onto your desktop (there may be an easier path to this, i've never done it).

applications folder usually pops up with installations of an app like chrome, it's not there by default. and move those 'loose' folders to either the Photos app (where they'll be copied, then you can delete from the 'finder', or... move them wherever you want.

yes, am sharing data with another apple device. i also understand the applications folder under favorites, and that the application folder in my home/users folder is basically only for an application that i might want to have but don't want anyone else who might use the computer, have access to. don't see that happening.

am still curious as to why some of the folders in my home/users folder are faded blue, compared to the rest that are bright blue? the faded ones are; .cups, .zsh_sessions, desktop, library, trash.

 

[fisherking]

yes, am sharing data with another apple device. i also understand the applications folder under favorites, and that the application folder in my home/users folder is basically only for an application that i might want to have but don't want anyone else who might use the computer, have access to. don't see that happening.

am still curious as to why some of the folders in my home/users folder are faded blue, compared to the rest that are bright blue? the faded ones are; .cups, .zsh_sessions, desktop, library, trash.

those should all be hidden; you hit command-shift-period perhaps; hit it now and those will return to 'hidden'. they're hidden for a reason (& should not be tampered with).

chrome creates an app folder in your home folder (possibly, other apps do that as well)...

 

[drdudj]

got it, thank you.