Who else doesn't use Applications or Documents folder as the OS expects you to?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Let’s start with /Applications —

I download a diskimage of a new application and mount it, and it comes with a convenient “hey just drag me into this here alias of your Applications folder and you’re all set up!” GUIfied folder. Yeah right. Like I want all my freaking applications dumped into one undifferentiated mess. I double-click the alias to Applications and then drill down into the categorical subfolders I created there. Drag the new app into the appropriate category. The OS gets persnickety because it is set up to let you move stuff into or out of /Applications but isn’t expecting subfolders, so it makes me authenticate each time.

The next app comes as an Installer pkg file, and I click through… default location, or change? I click to indicate I want to change the install location. It lets me choose between my hard drive and, ermm, perhaps some other volume if I connect one? Accept default location, complete the install, double-click the hard drive icon and drill down into Applications, drag the stupid application file into the folder I freaking want it in, then try it to make sure that doesn’t break anything.

This notion that everything that’s an application goes into the root of /Applications would make sense if I were only going to install a couple dozen applications in total, but c’mon!

Same issue with /Documents and the plethora of applications that want to open or save or save as to this gigantic garbage midden of a folder by default. Easier to bypass, but annoying that it takes a 3rd party add-on to get these bloody programs to default to the last place I opened from or saved to.

2

Those specific details are very MacOS-specific.

In Windows, applications install (often with no alternative) to the \Program Files directory or the \Program Files (x86) or the boot disk. I assume the distinction is 64-bit or 32-bit apps, but I haven’t bothered to dig into it and confirm my guess.

Documents is a pseudo-folder mapped by default to a Documents folder in a user’s profile directory. But this can be remapped almost arbitrarily, so other than users who don’t know to remap, it could really be anywhere.

3

If I were you, I’d try letting files be in Applications where macOS wants them, and also use hard/soft links so they can also be stored in a hierarchy as you would like. See if it allows you to fight the OS less.

That said, I do mostly use the folders the way the OS wants–though I do move them to different drives rather than keeping them with the OS.

4

Like most of us, I’d developed my own personal hierarchy of stuff in my early Mac II and DOS days. Back when the OSs had no particular opinions about how to organize your stuff.

Which I dutifully tried to carry forward into the future. For about 2 years. Then I wised up. Do it the OS’s way. You are not smarter than they are. You’re certainly less informed than they are. You will have far less heartburn.

I haven’t Mac-ed since the 90’s so can’t speak to current Mac practices.

In Windows land Documents is the root folder of whatever hierarchy you want. And as noted, is a virtual folder that can be anywhere you want it to be. In fact since about Win8 it’s actually a “Library”. Which is a virtual folder that can be comprised of as many physical folders on as many drives and servers as you like.


Yes. That’s it. And Microsoft had to go to great contortions when they went to 64 bit because so much legacy software had not followed their compatibility rules on how to locate the program install folder. So they had to name things in an illogical backwards way. Not because they were dumb, but because the ecosystem of existing 3rd party programs and corporate software was so dumb.

As to why you’re semi-forced to install to one of the Program Files folders, that has to do with security. Those folders are locked down to prevent malware from being able to alter the contents or drop itself in there. Choosing to stick programs elsewhere, without duplicating those complicated security arrangements that 99% of Windows users know nothing about, defeats one of the major layers against having your machine compromised.

Within the Program Files hierarchy, Microsoft recommends that software vendors adopt a hierarchy of \Company name\Product Name\Version or just \Company name\Product Name and then within that bottommost folder, do whatever they think makes sense for their app. Which organization is mostly about deconflicting the products of various companies. Since a typical PC may have 100 apps from 100 vendors, having them not step on each other is a virtue from the OS’s POV.

Ultimately, the contents of Program Files is intended to be a “no end-user serviceable parts inside” area. Just like under Windows. If you’re a professional and know what you’re doing there may be a need to poke into there. But generally not.


Bottom line: Use the UI to organize your menus & desktop shortcuts and the Macish equivalents how you want, and leave the innards organized how they want. For security and for safety. And mostly for sanity. Yours.

5

I have never knowingly used the MS documents or media folders. Seeing them in menu lists just annoys me. And of course some things, without asking me, try to dump things in such places. Grrr.

And there are apps that want to create “libraries” for the type of files they deal with. E.g., Calibre wants to take every e-book I want to add to my e-reader and stuff a copy of it in it’s library. Um, the “library” can just be a database with links to wherever placeS I keep my e-books. No need to make another copy that takes up space. Ditto some media players, etc. also insist on searching an empty “library” for stuff.

Also, OSes can handle symbolic links. Why copy stuff when a symbolic link does just fine?

I organize my stuff my way. Deal with it.

6

Using Windows.

I create an /apps/ folder (directory for all of us who began using computers with Assembly) if the program installer file allows to to install in my own directory. I store all my files on a separate, external D hard drive (the hell with with cloud crap).

Why? Going back to Windows NT servers in the early days of the web we installed the web server in directories of our own choosing and not the Windows default directories. Scammers were not sophisticated back then and failed in their attacks because we didn’t use default settings. I still hold that attitude. I keep my own files in a separate hard drive so any failures to the OS hard drive limits any impact of disruption or failure.

7

I have sub-folders in /Applications, and I will move new apps into them if I feel I should.
That said, I’m a lot less likely to do that these days than I was 40 years ago.
First of all, I use a lot fewer apps these days. When I look at the cruft of my /Applications folder, I’m amazed at the number of old, useless apps. These days, I use a small handful of apps for 99% of my work, and the web for the other 1%.
Secondly, even now, there are apps that won’t run correctly from anywhere but /Applications. These are usually cross-platform apps with a zillion dependencies and frameworks, and they just have not been tested very well to see if the actual path the the App is /Applications or not.
Lastly - the days of digging around in Finder to find the correct app are long gone. I have used Alfred for ages as my launcher. When I want to launch an app, I just do cmd-space and a character or two, and then hit return. So, I really don’t care where the App lives.

As for the /Documents folder - I organize that with many subfolders, and I also use Dropbox to link to current work-in-progress, and data that I want available on any of my devices.

8

Subfolders of Documents makes sense, because I need to sift through those myself, but I almost never dig into Applications, anyway, so I might as well just let the OS do things the way it expects.

9

I agree completely with you, AHunter3. I do the exact same thing with applications that try to install, have a few application subfolders for this very reason. I also hate applications that autonomously create their own subfolders in Documents, thereby messing up my own structure.

10

I also go up to another level in putting things in non-standard places. E.g., for historical reasons I use D: as the OS home/etc. partition with data elsewhere. This really did hurt the script kiddies back when since they tried to mod stuff under C: instead of using %windir%.and such. Some real install packages made the same mistake. I’d often back out of the install and get rid of it rather than mod the script. Who knows what other stupidity was going on in the program?

MS makes it a real pain now to fresh install its OS to the D: partition, but I’ve managed to do it.

11

I don’t use the media folders in Windows because my hobbies used to consist of so many kinds of media that needed to be in their own strict hierarchies that combining them in one place would be madness. I guess they assume we only ever keep holiday photos and nothing else.

I do use the Downloads folder, and the only apps not strictly in Program Files are self-contained widgets like a countdown timer and a file renamer.

I wonder if one day they will include a Porn folder.