Why are there two sets of Apple software loaded on my hard drive??? Why must I give up storage space to duplicate applications. Almost every one of the applications shown in the screenshot HD/System/Applications are also found in HD/Applications.
And, while we are talking of arrogance and idiocy, why won't Apple's Safari load the Apple web site which Firefox loads without issue.
MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
You are incorrect!
No, you have no idea what you are seeing.
Just because something appears to exist in two locations doesn't mean they are two different things.
And the newest version of Safari still will not load the Apple web site that loads fine in Firefox. This is rediculous.
Looks fine to me.
You are incorrect!
There are two sets of actual Apple applications. They each occupy the same amount of disk space 875.3MB in the HD/System/Applications directory, and the SAME 875.3MB in the HD/Applications directory.
Both sets are listed as full applications, have the same version numbers and occupy the same disk space. Doing this just smacks of arrogance. Why do they think they can deplete a user's hard drive storage space with duplicate applications.
And, the applications are no longer indexed by Objective Development's LaunchBar.
And the newest version of Safari still will not load the Apple web site that loads fine in Firefox. This is rediculous.
You are going to have to do better than that. My copy of Photoshop resides in the HD/Applications directory; it occupies a certain amount of disk space as defined by the calculated size of the physical file listed in the HD/Applications directory.
Please define what hocus pocus Apple has pulled to make what appears to be two iterations of their applications occupy what appears to be double the space on my hard drive each listed as an application; each listed as having the same amount of MB used, i.e., the Music application occupies 102.7MB in the HD/Applications directory and 102.7MB in the HD/System/Applications directory. That does not equate to me as just two listings. It equates to two applications in two two directories unnecessarily using double the HD space that should be used.
However, opening the package contents for the Music application file in the HD/System/Applications directory shows that all of the contents map to the HD/Applications/Music/Contents directory.
So what exactly is going on? Why do both directories indicate that 102.7 MB is being used in each directory for the Music.app? Why does Apple have to put a fake application in one directory and the real application in another directory. The file listed in HD/System/Applications is not an alias, and the contents of the package are not aliases, yet the package content is shown to reside in the HD/Applications directory inside of Music.app.
How is that possible and how much disk space is really being used?
Why they are not found in a search by Easy Find; why doesn't Objective Development's LaunchBar index them, and why does only one of the two iterations appear in a Finder search.
I'm writing this on Firefox because Safari would not load the site earlier today. It now is loading Apple's web site. All I know is what I observe...Safari did not load the Apple web site for several hours earlier today, and Firefox loaded it immediately.
Your answers need information to back them up...real explanations and data. They are useless without detail.
Barney-15Eis correct and you are incorrect. If anyone is arrogant here it's you not Apple.
You are confusing physical storage with what the Operating System reports.
The Music application does NOT occupy 102.7MB in the HD/Applications directory and 102.7MB in the HD/System/Applications directory. The Music application occupies 102.7MB on the disk. It is listed in two locations and each location correctly states how much space the application takes up on the disk. But two listings is NOT the application taking up space in two locations.
Imagine a reference book with an index in the back. Imagine two words in the index that have the same meaning and point to the same entry within the book. There's two listings in the index, but only one entry in the book that the two listings point to.
That's exactly what the Finder is. It's an index of the disks contents. For various reasons, it's appropriate to list the same contents in multiple locations. Research what the term "hard link" means as another example.
If you want proof of the hocus pocus that Apple has done to make this happen, try the following:
Test 1.
"That does not equate to me as just two listings. It equates to two applications in two two directories unnecessarily using double the HD space that should be used." Ok. If that's the case then open the Music application in the first directory. Then open the Music application in the second directory. If what you're saying is true then that will open two separate Music applications. However I think you'll find double clicking the second one simply brings the first one to the front. Why? They're the same application, just two listings in the "index" of the same thing.
Test 2.
Get Info on your HD. Note the GB used (A) and the GB available (B).
Get Info on your Applications folder. Note the Size. (C)
Now hold down the option key and drag your entire Applications folder to the desktop. This action duplicates the entire Applications folder.
Now Get Info on your HD again. Note the GB used (A1) and the GB available. (B1)
If what you're saying is true, then A1 should be A + C, and B1 should be B - C.
However, I think you'll find that A1 and A are almost if not exactly the same, and B1 and B are almost if not exactly the same.
How can that be? Now you have THREE "copies" of most of these applications on your drive. Because you didn't copy the applications, you copied the index listings. This is a feature of Apple's APFS system. Identical files on a drive don't take up extra space. They are just different listings of the same space. Note, of course, if you copy something to a different drive/volume, then it does in fact copy all the data and occupies space on both volumes. The above test doesn't use space because it's the same drive/volume.
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You need to show a little more respect for people trying to help you if you want anyone to pay any attention to you here or on any other forum. And maybe you should get your facts straight before you start spouting off how terrible and arrogant "they" are. False accusations (why do they think they can...?") smack of arrogance in my opinion.
Hope this helps.
There’s really no hocus pocus. You can mount a storage location to as many places as you wish. I’m not sure there is any file system that shows you exactly where the data is written to disk.
What you might think is hocus pocus are hard links, mount points, and just plain misdirection where the Finder shows the built-in apps (stored on the System Volume) and the optional apps (stored on the Data volume) apparently in one folder.
I guess it is hocus pocus if you think the file system actually shows the data exactly as it is stored on disk.
You are simply, utterly wrong. Nothing is duplicated on your computer. As people have been trying to politely tell you, just because they are listed in more than one place, does not mean they duplicated. Just like on an iPhone or iPad, when you look at your photos library and you choose to store the photo in an Album, they can be seen in both locations. Are there two copies of the photo? No. There is a pointer to the original photo in the Album, but there is only ONE photo on the device.
If you really are so convinced there are two applications on your computer, go ahead and delete one of them. You'll find it is gone in both places you can see the application. You can then reinstall the application if you want.
BinsuJiro wrote:
I'm writing this on Firefox because Safari would not load the site earlier today. It now is loading Apple's web site. All I know is what I observe...Safari did not load the Apple web site for several hours earlier today, and Firefox loaded it immediately.
Others have already explained the difference between references to applications appearing in different locations versus actual copies of the app.
Regarding the Safari issue, we'll need more information. Does it open but not load any sites? Does it give any errors? Does it not open at all? Quit Safari with CMD + Q, then open it while holding Shift.
The applications in /Applications and /System/Applications are most like sharing the same blocks on the disk with hard links. This means they are sharing the storage on the disk by using the same entry in the file table, but are appearing as identical files of the same size in the Finder.
You can see the shared entry in the file table by looking at the node number of the file in the Terminal with the ls -I command. For example, for the Photos.app the node numbers are exactly identical in both places, suggesting that both application packages are sharing the storage on the internal drive.
% ls -i /System/Applications/Photos.app
1152921500311894605 Contents
% ls -i /System/Applications/Photos.app
1152921500311894605 Contents
%
My system is set to German as the system language. When I look at my Applications folder it is called Programme and the Photos.app is shown as Fotos.app. When I drag /Programme/Fotos.app to the Terminal, it is automatically inserted as /System/Applications/Photos.app . The Finder is simulating a very different file structure as the system is seeing.
Picture this, you have set up your iMac with five users, each user will have their own discrete home folder and there will be their unique collection of apps, some will be the built in Apple apps. These built in apps aren’t duplicated in each user home folder but will be linked to the system folder. When installing a third party app there is the option to make it available to all users, so there will be one set of installation files linked to each user, however any user data associated with the app will only be accessible to the user.
An answer without an explanation is no answer at all.
I like to know what is going on under the hood with a machine that I purchased and own and that I use for almost all of my daily business.
Aside from that I am a graphic designer, a visual person, and if what is see is NOT what I'm getting, I need to know exactly what is going on. As with the first reply, there is no meaning to the answer.
Based on DavidThorp's reply and Barney-15E's subsequent reply, I did some research on aliases, symbolic links and hard links.
The research is helping me understand the nature of what I am seeing.
But, there are still anomalies, for instance, why was Safari installed with a listing in only one location in the traditional Applications folder while all the other Apple applications were listed in the two "locations" I referenced previously?
Why would Safari not load the apple.com site immediately after installation, while Firefox would load it without issue. Granted Safari did eventually load the Apple site, but that was hours after I made the initial attempt to load the Apple site.
When Apple first introduced OS 10, they held seminars for heavy users of their computers, like for graphic designers. They explained the new OS in great detail, helping users understand how it works.
I would like to learn much more about what happen behind the WYSIWYG surface of Mac OS.
We are not Apple Advisors. We are all users on this user to user only forum. We have endeavored to try to explain how it all works and yet, what has been provided by users using their own personal time to try to explain, does not seem to satisfy.
Use the Get Support at the top of this page to communicate with Apple or if in the US, call Apple at: 800-MY-APPLE for direct support.
Thanks to all who answered my original inquiry with detailed information. As I said I have done some research based on those relies that shed light on my concerns.
Regarding the Safari issue, we'll need more information. Does it open but not load any sites? Does it give any errors? Does it not open at all? Quit Safari with CMD + Q, then open it while holding Shift.
The last two times I installed updated versions of Safari, Safari loaded properly and went to almost all the sites I wanted it to load, but both times it would not load the apple.com site immediately after installation, while the other browsers on my system would load the site without any delay or issue.
After both installations Safari eventually loaded the Apple site after a considerable period of time. It just seems to me that Apple would want their browser to be setup upon installation to at least go to their own site.
Apple has been using hard links when migrating iPhoto Libraries to Photos Libraries, for example. This way we could keep the old iPhoto Libraries or Aperture Libraries around, until we were sure, that the new Photos Libraries were working correctly. It looked like the new libraries needed the same amount of storage like the original libraries, but all identical image files between the libraries were hard links, not identical files - identical image files in both libraries were simply sharing the same storage by using the same inodes in the file table. Six Colors: The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link
The Finder is adding an additional level of redirection, which is complicating things, particularly with the different names depending on the system language, or for the iCloud Drive directories.
The last two times I installed updated versions of Safari, Safari loaded properly and went to almost all the sites I wanted it to load, but both times it would not load the apple.com site immediately after installation, while the other browsers on my system would load the site without any delay or issue.
After both installations Safari eventually loaded the Apple site after a considerable period of time. It just seems to me that Apple would want their browser to be setup upon installation to at least go to their own site.
Sounds to me like you have installed Adware that is redirecting websites. EtreCheck can confirm and help remove.
Why are two sets of Apple software loaded in Ventura?
