“Of all the ‘under the hood’ components of Mac OS X, my personal favorite is preferences files. Why? For starters, they are important. They potentially affect every application you use, from the Finder to obscure utilities. Second, there are significant and well-defined troubleshooting issues regarding preferences files, that every user should know about. Third, there are the numerous ‘hidden’ preferences settings that unlock useful and sometimes “fun” features of applications that you would otherwise never know about. And finally, compared to the intricacies of UNIX, preferences files are a fairly easy component to master,” Ted Landau writes for MacFixIt.
“So, for the benefit of those of you not yet initiated into the world of preferences files, or if you just want to expand the horizons of your knowledge, I offer this tutorial,” Landau writes.
Full article here.
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Whoa! What’s this? A Mac related article on MacDailyNews!!!
I’m shocked!!
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Oh, and btw, *always* back up your preference files before screwing around with them. Always.
ps I’m shocked because there has been a large number of iPod related articles recently. (not that that’s bad… but we can go to ipoddailynews if we want.)
I’d like an explanation of why the Applications/Library folder has both a Preferences folder and an Application Support folder. I understand that some things can’t go into the app bundle file because if you uninstall an application you frequently don’t want to remove your preferences, but why have TWO locations for auxilliary files?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Davidlow,
The reason is because Application Support is different to Preferences – an example is GarageBand, if you buy a Jam Pack it installs the Sound Files in ~/Library/Application Support and saves Preferences for the App in ~/Library/Preferences.
If your Preferences get corrupted, you still have your Jam Packs.
Comprende?
Good stuff, this.
Thanks Jamie. That makes sense.