what is "all my files"

Mary Lou Bledsoe wrote:

I have some 4,000 documents in "All my Files". Can I delete them without losing them in other places?

Continuing from what Drew Reece said, you could also create your own Finder -> File -> Smart Folder that includes just the files you want to see, and not all 4,000.

Or create several Smart Folders that have the different class of files you want.

<OS X Yosemite: Create or modify a Smart Folder>

<http://www.macworld.com/article/1154709/business/smartfolders.html>

<http://www.computerworld.com/article/2476275/mac-os-x/os-x--everything-you-need- to-use-smart-folders.html>

Or just look at the individual folders you are interested in.

'All My Files' is literally what it says - ALL YOUR FILES. It is just a smart search that looks at files in your home folder.

If you delete them there they will be gone everywhere. I doubt you really want to remove all your personal files?

Please try explaining what you want to achieve, otherwise you may find that you lose a lot of data.

If you just don't want to see 'All My Files' in the Finder window sidebars, simply open the Finder menu > Preferences, select the Sidebar tab, disable 'All my files'

There are a number of items in "all my files" that say "album data". What is that and can they all be deleted?

Also, I have a number of files that are duplicates - can they be deleted with out losing the files on my Mac?

Mary Lou Bledsoe wrote:

There are a number of items in "all my files" that say "album data". What is that and can they all be deleted?

Also, I have a number of files that are duplicates - can they be deleted with out losing the files on my Mac?

Select the file you are interested in, And then use Finder -> File -> Get Info (or Command-I) and the Get Info dialog box will tell you exactly where the file actually lives.

Or you can Control-Click on the file, and select "Show in Enclosing Folder". That will also show you were the file actually lives.

Or Enable Finder -> View -> Show Path Bar, and when you select a file you will see the path to the file at the bottom of the Finder window.

Again, All My Files is just the search results display, where OS X has provided a default search.

It's a saved search included in the Finder's sidebar. Are you referring to that? Explain what you mean by it's empty.

It is a pre-programmed Spotlight search. When you select it in the Finder it should display all your files in specific categories. There is no other use. It's a sort of shortcut or alias like all the others that appear in the Finder's sidebar.

Then it must be damaged or missing. Open Finder's preferences, click on the Sidebar icon in the toolbar and uncheck it at the top of the list. That will remove it from the Finder's sidebar.

Is it a brand new Mac with a clean user account or if Spotlight is indexing it could be OK that it is empty.

If not consider rebuilding the Spotlight index.

Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes - Apple Support

I have some 4,000 documents in "All my Files". Can I delete them without losing them in other places?