The Finder is the default file manager and graphical user interface shell used on all Macintosh operating systems. Described in its "About" window as "The Macintosh Desktop Experience", it is responsible for the launching of other applications, and for the overall user management of files, disks, and network volumes. It was introduced with the Macintosh 128K—the first Macintosh computer—and also exists as part of GS/OS on the Apple IIGS. It was rewritten completely with the release of Mac OS X in 2001.
Mail, also known as Apple Mail, is an email client included by Apple Inc. with its operating systems macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and visionOS. Mail grew out of NeXTMail, which was originally developed by NeXT as part of its NeXTSTEP operating system, after Apple's acquisition of NeXT in 1997.
Mac OS X Panther is the fourth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It followed Mac OS X Jaguar and preceded Mac OS X Tiger. It was released on October 24, 2003, with the retail price of US$129 for a single user and US$199 for a five user, family license.
Utility software is a program specifically designed to help manage and tune system or application software. It is used to support the computer infrastructure - in contrast to application software, which is aimed at directly performing tasks that benefit ordinary users. However, utilities often form part of the application systems. For example, a batch job may run user-written code to update a database and may then include a step that runs a utility to back up the database, or a job may run a utility to compress a disk before copying files.
Macintosh File System (MFS) is a volume format created by Apple Computer for storing files on 400K floppy disks. MFS was introduced with the original Apple Macintosh computer in January 1984.
Mac OS X Leopard is the sixth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on October 26, 2007 as the successor of Mac OS X Tiger, and is available in two editions: a desktop version suitable for personal computers, and a server version, Mac OS X Server. It retailed for $129 for the desktop version and $499 for Server. Leopard was superseded by Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 2009. Mac OS X Leopard is the last version of macOS that supports the PowerPC architecture as its successor, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, functions solely on Intel based Macs.
In computing, a virtual folder generally denotes an organizing principle for files that is not dependent on location in a hierarchical directory tree. Instead, it consists of software that coalesces results from a data store, which may be a database or a custom index, and presents them visually in the format in which folder views are presented. A virtual folder can be thought of as a view that lists all files tagged with a certain tag, and thus a simulation of a folder whose dynamic contents can be assembled on the fly, when requested. It is related in concept to several other topics in computer science, with names including saved search, saved query, and filtering.
OmniDiskSweeper is a freeware disk space analyzer utility for macOS developed by The Omni Group, which recursively searches the filesystem and displays entries sorted and color-coded by size, from largest to smallest. Alternatives include DaisyDisk and GrandPerspective.
Time Machine is the backup mechanism of macOS, the desktop operating system developed by Apple. The software is designed to work with both local storage devices and network-attached disks, and is commonly used with external disk drives connected using either USB or Thunderbolt. It was first introduced in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which was released in October 2007 and incrementally refined in subsequent releases of macOS. Time Machine was revamped in macOS 11 Big Sur to support APFS, thereby enabling "faster, more compact, and more reliable backups" than were possible previously.
Windows Home Server is a home server operating system from Microsoft. It was announced on 7 January 2007 at the Consumer Electronics Show by Bill Gates, released to manufacturing on 16 July 2007 and officially released on 4 November 2007.
In computing, the trash, also known by other names such as trash bin, dustbin, wastebasket, and similar names, is a graphical user interface desktop metaphor for temporary storage for files set aside by the user for deletion, but which are not yet permanently erased. This lifts the burden from the user of having to be highly careful while selecting files for deletion, since a trash bin provides a grace period to reverse unwanted deletions. The concept and name is part of Mac operating systems; a similar implementation is called the Recycle Bin in Microsoft Windows, and other operating systems use other names, sometimes ending with "-bin".
MobileMe is a discontinued subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. All services were gradually transitioned to and eventually replaced by the free iCloud, and MobileMe ceased on June 30, 2012, with transfers to iCloud being available until July 31, 2012, or data being available for download until that date, when the site finally closed completely. On that date all data was deleted, and email addresses of accounts not transferred to iCloud were marked as unused.
AppleDisk Image is a disk image format commonly used by the macOS operating system. When opened, an Apple Disk Image is mounted as a volume within the Finder.
Space Gremlin is a disk space analysis tool for Mac OS X.
SpaceSniffer is a freeware computer disk space analyser from Uderzo Software for Microsoft Windows platforms. It uses a treemap to visualise disk usage.
A disk utility is a utility program that allows a user to perform various functions on a computer disk, such as disk partitioning and logical volume management, as well as multiple smaller tasks such as changing drive letters and other mount points, renaming volumes, disk checking, and disk formatting, which are otherwise handled separately by multiple other built-in commands. Each operating system (OS) has its own basic disk utility, and there are also separate programs which can recognize and adjust the different filesystems of multiple OSes. Types of disk utilities include disk checkers, disk cleaners and disk space analyzers
ranger is a free and open-source file manager with text-based user interface for Unix-like systems. It is developed by Roman Zimbelmann and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The program can accomplish file management tasks with a few keystrokes, and mouse input is optional. In conjunction with extensions including the rifle file opener and scope.sh, ranger can be scripted to open files with pre-defined programs, and to display a preview of the selected file by calling external programs.
Apple File System (APFS) is a proprietary file system developed and deployed by Apple Inc. for macOS Sierra (10.12.4) and later, iOS 10.3, tvOS 10.2, watchOS 3.2, and all versions of iPadOS. It aims to fix core problems of HFS+, APFS's predecessor on these operating systems. APFS is optimized for solid-state drive storage and supports encryption, snapshots, and increased data integrity, among other capabilities.
macOS Mojave is the fifteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. Mojave was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 4, 2018, and was released to the public on September 24. The operating system's name refers to the Mojave Desert, continuing the use of California-themed names that began with OS X Mavericks. It succeeded macOS High Sierra and was followed by macOS Catalina. macOS Mojave is the last version of macOS that features the iTunes and Dashboard apps.
