OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Recognizing Folder, File, and Disk Icons

As I noted in this chapter's introduction, OS X uses icons to indicate what an item is, such as a folder, file, or disk. But there's not simply one icon for each type of item; OS X uses a variety of icons to help you know more specifically what type of item a specific item is.

Figure 4.2 shows a sampling of icons to show the details that OS X provides on disks, folders, and files. Here's what the icons show:

• Disks (top-left group): From left to right are the icons for an internal disk, an external disk, a removable disk (including USB thumb drives and SD cards), a DVD, and a network-attached volume (a volume can be a computer, disk, or folder connected via the network).

• Folders (top-center group): From left to right are the icons for a regular folder, an OS X special folder (in this case, the Applications folder, as indicated by the icon stamped on the folder), a folder alias (note the arrow icon at the lower left), a folder you do not have permission to open (note the red icon at the lower right), and the Home folder for the current user account.

• Applications (top-right group): Applications display as unique icons; shown here are the icons for Pages and Calendar.

• Files (bottom group): Also called documents, files' icons all have a curled upper-right corner. Files typically include an icon representing their applications and also show the file extension associated to their file type, as shown in the Zip file icon at the far left. ...