What is Library/WebServer/Share all about?

[Silly John Fatty]

I was deleting remains of the Adobe Cloud app that I had installed, and I noticed that around the same period, plenty of files were created in /Library/WebServer/share/httpd/manual/vhosts.

I am, however, not sure that they're linked to the Adobe app. I looked at the installation logs and I couldn't find anything happening at the time of creation of these suspect files.

I know that there has been malware for Mac circulating last year ("Cloud mensis") that would create a folder called WindowServer in this directory, but it's not here in my case, so I think I may not have any viruses.

So I wonder what these files are that I found and wether I can delete them. Do you guys have these too?

It's 204 files (files and folders) created under /vhosts all at the same time, on the same day.

Nothing found in install logs, other logs are sadly outdated and I don't have the older ones anymore.

 

[Ben J.]

Are the files taking up much space?
Are there any signs that they are causing any kind of problem?

If no, then I wouldn't worry too much about it. I see people worrying about redundant files causing problems or slowing down their mac, perhaps resorting to "clean-up" apps. If you don't have problems, I think this is a waste of time and concern. If you make shure that log-in items enabled in Security/privacy settings are things you can trust, there is no need to worry about redundant files, even if they reside in the Library folder(s). If you delete files in Library without being certain what they really are - that's when I would start to worry.

I know I have lots of redundant files on my startdisk, from past mac models, versions of macOS, apps that I no longer use, but I also know that there is virtually no risk that they pose a threat of any kind, or are making my mac slower.

For easy viewing of what's taking up space on your drive, and managing disk space, I highly recommend DaisyDisk, and I personally stay far away from those "clean-up" apps.

 

[Brian33]

My Monterey system has 43 files (no directories) within 'vhosts', with names like "details.html" and "examples.html". I have 204 files/directories within "/Library/WebServer/share/httpd/manual" (one of which is vhosts).

They appear to be related to the web server 'httpd'. (macOS -- at least up to Monterey -- still ships with the apache web server. However, by default it is disabled.) In particular they are named like sections of a user manual.

It may be that some program installation has put additional files there in your case, but I'd follow @Ben J. 's advice and just leave them there!