Doug Allen asks:
Is it necessary, or even correct, to have 3 separate Library folders on my “Main” hard drive, as follows:
/Library (7.58 GB; 46,790 items)
/System/Library (4.55 GB; 103,067 items)
/Users/DA3/Library (8.91 GB; 59,942 items)
This is on my Mac.
7 Answers -
Mike
July 28, 2012That is correct, yes.
Each user has it’s own Library folder “/Users/shortname/Library” where application data and settings are stored, e.g. from Mail, iCal, Address book, Safari, all your preferences, …
“/Library” is the global Library folder where applications store stuff that is common to all users of the Mac e.g. dependencies, scripts,
“/System/Library” is pretty much the core of Mac OS X and should not be touched by the user. In there you find pretty much everything that makes Mac OS X tik like the “Finder.app” and whatnot.
Jason
July 28, 2012Perfectly normal!
David Barrett
July 31, 2012There can even be more than three, if you run multiple user accounts on your computer. You’ll actually have one library folder for each user account, plus the two common library folders.
In OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion), the ~/Library folder is now hidden, ostensibly to stop inexperienced users from munting the system. (You can still get into it if you need to, by showing hidden files on your Mac.) Where’s the trust, Cupertino?
Gerhard Tinned
September 6, 2012Yes, this is correct there are 3 Library folders.
The last one (http://oomphalot.com/sidekick/) is holding the user specific content where as the other two are system related and whatever is inside is for all users.
To be honest i dont know the ecaxt difference between /Library and /System/Library but i know it is normal to have them.
Theo Reisinger
October 8, 2012Seems right, and they usually hold different items depending on your settings
Evan Fenner
October 11, 2012They are all supposed to be exactly where they are, although I think by OSX Lion they are hidden by default.
Siddhant Chaurasia
October 24, 2012Yes this is absolutely normal