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.

Macintosh HD Data shows my applications folder to be empty even though I've installed dozens of working apps?

Hi folks - my older iMac running High Sierra died and I just purchased a new 2020 iMac with Big Sur.


I went about installing my applications like normal. They all work and if I click "applications" in the favorites part of the finder window they show up. However, I soon noticed that the only volume that showed up in "locations" in the finder window was "Macintosh HD Data". When I click this volume and go to the applications folder it is empty. I wanted to be able to see where my applications were actually going and I needed to copy some .vst files to application support folder in the Library. As I started to look at paths of files I realized that all these folders and files I needed were actually on "Macintosh HD". So I ejected the Mac HD Data location and dragged the Macintosh HD into the location bar and now I am able to access my HD like I am used to.


Is this normal? Everything I'm reading online says this is the opposite of where the applications are supposed to actually be. Any clarification would be appreciated thank you!

iMac 27″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jul 4, 2021 11:38 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 5, 2021 5:26 PM

Beginning with macOS 10.15 Catalina macOS now has a read-only APFS system volume called "Macintosh HD" while the "/Users" folder is on a read+write APFS volume called "Macintosh HD - Data". See this Apple article for more information:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650


FYI, there are also some other hidden APFS volumes now for normal macOS operations than are listed in the article.

Similar questions

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 5, 2021 5:26 PM in response to jvivvy

Beginning with macOS 10.15 Catalina macOS now has a read-only APFS system volume called "Macintosh HD" while the "/Users" folder is on a read+write APFS volume called "Macintosh HD - Data". See this Apple article for more information:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650


FYI, there are also some other hidden APFS volumes now for normal macOS operations than are listed in the article.

Jul 5, 2021 5:50 PM in response to jvivvy

You, my friend, are experiencing the dubious joy of using Apple's new APFS file system. Your brain may still be wrapped around the basics of the old HFS+ system, but things have changed.


Macintosh HD is a read-only protected APFS volume for macOS system files. There’s nothing you can do with it short of erasing the drive and all the data on it. That would be bad!

Macintosh HD - Data is the volume where the user accounts and user data live. Files and folders on this drive may be freely managed by the user accounts that own them.


Finder always displays both of these volumes together as a single drive named Macintosh HD. In Finder, the default volume that you are usually interacting with is Macintosh HD - Data. Finder never reveals the full name of the -data volume to you. But Disk Utility and Terminal will.


In Finder, when you click > Go menu > Applications (⇧⌘A), the window that opens is a representative of the folder located at Macintosh HD/Applications/. It's the default location for all the applications available to all the users of the Mac. This is where your applications are actually going.


The applications folder you see in your Home folder is located at Macintosh HD - Data/Users/yourusername/Applications. It lives on the -Data volume of your APFS installation.


It's a different animal than HFS+ format used in previous versions of macOS.


You can choose which items will appear in the Finder sidebar by clicking Finder > Preferences > Sidebar and then checking the appropriate boxes. These items will display in any Finder window once Finder > View > Show Sidebar is selected.


There's more to learn about APFS, but thinking about all of this makes my head explode. 🤯


Macintosh HD Data shows my applications folder to be empty even though I've installed dozens of working apps?

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