Home Folder

The tilde ~ is your home directory. In Terminal:

cd ~          # go home
ls ~          # list home contents
echo $HOME    # prints /Users/yourname

Standard Folders

Folder	Purpose
~/Desktop	Your desktop files
~/Documents	Personal files (can sync to iCloud)
~/Downloads	Browser downloads, AirDrop receives
~/Pictures	Photos app library lives here
~/Music	Music app library
~/Movies	Video files
~/Public	Files shared with other users on this Mac

Applications

Apps live in /Applications. Unlike Windows, there's no installer registry: an app is just a .app bundle (which is actually a folder).

The .app Bundle

Right-click any app → Show Package Contents. Inside you'll find:

MyApp.app/
├── Contents/
│   ├── Info.plist       ← app metadata (version, permissions)
│   ├── MacOS/           ← the actual executable
│   ├── Resources/       ← icons, images, localization files
│   └── Frameworks/      ← bundled libraries

This is why you can "install" many apps by just dragging them to /Applications: they're self-contained.