Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

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CHAPTER 2 THE FILE SYSTEM
Table 2-1. Continued
Folder Name Purpose
Logs Many of the applications and services in OS X generate log files that keep
track of important events that occur during the execution of a particular
service. These files are stored in the various Logs folders. All of these logs are
accessible (to those who have proper permissions to read them) via the
Console utility.
Mail ~/Library/Mail stores most of you mail account info and your actual Mail
folders for Leopard’s Mail application.
Modem Scripts The Modem Scripts directory contains a number of files that initialize various
brands of modems.
PDF Services This folder contains the various PDF workflows available from the PDF
submenu of the Print panel.
Perl The Perl folders contain the required and additional libraries for the Perl
scripting language.
Phones This folder stores information about any (non-iPhone) mobile phones that
you either sync with your computer (via iSync) or use as a modem.
PreferencePanes This folder contains the individual preference panes that appear in the
System Preferences window.
Preferences The Preferences directories contain all the saved preference data for every
application and system component. The preferences in
/Library/Preferences/ contain system-wide settings and metadata, while
the files in ~/Library/Preferences/ contain all of your personal settings and
metadata for your environment to operate correctly. Deleting a preference
file usually causes an application to revert to its default state, which will
remove all you personal settings (certain applications that require registration
codes for activation will often need to be reactivated as well). Almost every
application you launch will create a preference file, so you tend to acquire a
large number of them. Feel free to clean out preference files from
applications you no longer use.
Printers This folder stores information about your selected printers as well as other
important printing system files.
PrivateFrameworks This is another Framework directory that contains custom frameworks used for
internal purposes.
Python This directory contains additional Python libraries. (Unlike Perl, Python is
compiled as a framework in Leopard, so the core libraries are stored in the
/System/Library/Framework/ directory.)
QuickLook This directory contains Quick Look plug-ins that allow developers to add new
capabilities to Quick Look.
QuickTime The QuickTime folder contains QuickTime components that enhance the
capabilities of QuickTime (including third-party drivers).
Receipts The /Library/Receipts folder contains records of installed applications.
OS X uses the contents of this folder as sort of an odd package management
system. This is used by the system in many ways, so it’s best to leave it
alone—the exception would be for removing any receipts of applications
you have removed.