You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Containers Folder question

Is it normal that every folder Containers in the (User) library has a data folder that contains the same 9 folders which are desktop, documents, downloads, library, movies, music, pictures, system data and tmp?

iMac 27″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Sep 23, 2022 2:38 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 23, 2022 3:00 PM

That 'Data' folder is present in Catalina as you describe: many of the contents are aliases though the iMovie Library seems to live there, well hidden. I've no idea what the function of all this is, but I wouldn't tamper with it.

12 replies

Sep 24, 2022 2:27 PM in response to PRP_53

I know I'm behind on my updates but I have a very good reason. Our internet is through CenturyLink, which in this area is enough in itself. But, we live in the country & are the last house on a DSL service that goes back to the 70's & the company doesn't want to spend any money to maintain the system. We've heard it over & over from the service men that have come out for service.


Every time I try to update the software it's next to impossible. It ALWAYS takes days. The download will stop somewhere in the process & shows a message that theres's a problem with my internet. It is actually running right now & has been since 9:30 this morning. The window shows 1.43 GB of 6.59 GB has downloaded & has about 22 hours remaining. I usually try to run it overnight but even that doesn't help much.


Lyn

Sep 24, 2022 2:49 PM in response to lkibat

lkibat wrote:
...Sure seems like a waste of space.

Not really: in my case the Data folder is 10.97GB, and 10.73 of that is the iMove Library and iMovie Theatre - basically storing the projects you have in iMove and so its size is dependent on that (I have quite a few projects) - it has to be stored somewhere and it's a good idea to keep it out of sight as, like the iTunes Library, it should never be tampered with.


That leaves about 300MB, almost all of which is caches (in the Library folder) designed to speed up operations. The rest of the contents of Data is mostly aliases running to a few bytes.

Sep 26, 2022 10:26 AM in response to lkibat

Suggestion, outside of your original question, but specific to your above.


As this is a large iMac and transporting around is no easy task - via Friend, Relative, Associate or other Trusted Person with a Qualifying Apple Computer to run Big Sur ( this is the caveat - qualifying )


Have them or you download from the Apple Store a Full Version of Big Sur using the below Terminal Command Without Quotation Marks.


Suggest Copy and Paste the command to insure correct spacing.


" softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 11.7 "


This will download the Full Version of Big Sur 11.7 and will place a new application on the applications Folder of that Computer.


It Will Not Auto Launch


With a good reliable External Drive - Drag and Drop the " Install Big Sur " Application to external Drive


Get home and attached the drive to this computer.


Drag and Drop the above mentioned Application into the Applications folder of your computer


Now, you are ready to Launch the Application like any other Application and follow the prompts.


There will be several Auto Restarts along this journey until the final reboot.


Big Sur 11.7 should be presented in About this Mac.

Containers Folder question

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.