What is the purpose of ~/Library/Favorites?

Question

Level 1

10 points

What is the purpose of ~/Library/Favorites?

With Mountain Lion, what is the purpose of the (empty) Favorites folder in my Library? In the past there was a Favorites on the Finder Go menu, with shortcut shift-cmd-F, but that has been replaced by All My Files. I suppose I could put folders and files in it, then drag it to the sidebar and/or dock, but I could do that with any folder I create. Is there anything at all in the system that uses the Favorites folder? (For most situations in which I want favorites I use Default Folder X, but I recently thought of some things I wanted to do that I used to do the favorites feature of Unsanity's Fruit Menu and I stumbled on the Favorites folder.)

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), Hi-Res ANTI-GLARE wide screen

Posted on Aug 20, 2013 10:10 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

207,331 points

Aug 20, 2013 10:34 AM in response to MLModel

It's a carry over from an earlier OS. You can still use it by dragging it into the left hand pane of a Finder window for easy access to it.

OT

Reply

Answer 2

Z_B-B

Level 2

296 points

Aug 20, 2013 10:41 AM in response to MLModel

Hi ,

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 Library folder under each account user name (the ~/Library) is, by default, invisible in Lion and Mountain Lion versions of OS X. It is the folder that stores settings and information for various apps, among other things, and is the one that we will be revealing in this tutorial.

Reply