How macOS actually works

Mac file paths, explained

Updated 2026-07-31 · 4 min read

Finder shows you a friendly picture. The Terminal shows you the truth. They are the same filesystem described two different ways.

The shape of a path

/Users/sam/Documents/report.pdf

Everything starts at /, the root. There are no drive letters — additional disks appear under /Volumes.

~ is shorthand for your home folder, so ~/Documents/report.pdf is the same file.

The important locations

Path	What
/Applications	Apps for everyone
/Users/you or ~	Your home folder
/Volumes/DriveName	Mounted disks
/System	macOS — protected
/private/var, /tmp	System temporary files
/opt/homebrew	Homebrew on Apple Silicon
/usr/local	Homebrew on Intel, and other Unix software

Why Finder and Terminal disagree

Finder localises and prettifies. A folder shown as "Documents" may be Documents on disk regardless of your system language. Worse, Finder hides the volume structure: under APFS your files actually live on a Data volume at /System/Volumes/Data, which is transparently overlaid onto / by firmlinks. Both paths reach the same file.

Getting a real path

• Drag any file into a Terminal window — the path is pasted
• Select in Finder and press ⌥⌘C to copy the path
• Right-click, hold Option, choose Copy as Pathname
• ⇧⌘G accepts a typed path and takes you there

Spaces and escaping

cd ~/Documents/My\ Project
cd "~/Documents/My Project"

Either escape the space with a backslash or quote the whole path. This is the single most common Terminal frustration, and the reason a search tool that offers a shell-escaped copy of a path saves real time.

Common questions

What does ~ mean in a Mac path?

Your home folder — /Users/yourname. It is expanded by the shell, so it works in Terminal and in Finder's Go to Folder box.

Why do some paths start with /System/Volumes/Data?

APFS separates the read-only system volume from your data. Firmlinks make both appear under /.