This isn’t an urgent question, but it’s a serious one. I have never been sure if I have been saving files and downloaded apps, etc., in the proper place. I am the only user of this Mac, so I have pretty much ignored using my “Home” folder for anything I have created or added to my Mac.

I have created six main folders at the same level (root level?) as the Applications folder that was already on there (see attached grab). They are CAD, Documents, Installers, Internet, Movies, & Utilities. Those should be self-explanatory to anyone reading this.  For simplicity of access, I don’t have to drill down to access these file folders. When I open my HD, they are the first things I see at the top of the first column. I have added a space at the beginning of each folder name to keep them at the top of the list, and each folder has a different color code.

The original Utilities is a sub-folder buried in the Apps folder. Documents is in the Home folder, etc., and its full of stuff like, Microsoft User Data, and MacSpeech Profiles, that I don’t want cluttering up a folder of documents that I have created.

But let me say this: All the stuff that was in all of those original Applications, Utilities, Documents, etc., is still there. I didn’t move them for fear of messing something up.  And most of it is stuff I don’t access frequently, anyway.

My questions are as follows:
- There are obviously “apps” in “my” Internet and Utilities folders; stuff like FireFox and SuperDuper, for example. Am I doing any harm by not having them in the Applications folder?

- Should these five folders be at a different level, say in my Home folder, or are they ok where they are?

- Anything else I have overlooked?

This is the structure I have:

Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch

It is the one OS X installs by default. The rule I go by is that OS X knows better than I do where to place stuff. Some things can be moved around, of course, but I really do keep it at a minimum.

I’d like to think that the Downloads and Documents folders should be in my user account in case of unwanted intrusion, for example, these will be protected. No one else but you can go in those folders, if they are in your home account, unless you implicitly give the user the appropriate permissions.

If you really want to have a specific folder for Internet apps, keep it in the Applications folder. For instance, I have a Canon apps folder nested in the Applications folder and these work fine the way they are placed.

Some apps can refuse to work unless they are installed where they belong. I had a game I was trying out and it didn’t work: I had placed it in a folder nested in the Applications folder that I appropriately named, well, Games. I wondered what was preventing the game from working. The first thing that I thought of was to drop the game directly in the Applications folder and it started to work right after I did that.