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I have recently upgraded to macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 from macOS 10.15.7 on my 2016 MacBook Pro.

In Finder, there is a new (?) folder called "On My Mac" which I have never seen before.

It contains nothing useful, just an empty "PDF Expert" folder and a "BBEdit" folder with a file called "BBEdit Backups" which is of type "alias" (so I guess it's an alias of something).

This folder doesn't have any parent folder, it seems some kind of root folder (or very close to), but it for sure was not there in Catalina.

Does anyone know what it could be and if I should do something with it?

Following the suggestion in the comments I have dragged the folder on a Terminal window. Nothing happened but it disappeared from the Favourites sidebar in Finder. For the records, rebooting the Mac or logging out/in makes it reappear with the same contents.

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  • This is weird. I also updated to BigSur, no such folder. Can you show us the exact path? right click on the folder → information → location. You might also want to show all hidden files by pressing cmd Shift .
    – X_841
    Dec 6, 2020 at 19:40
  • Added a picture to show the Get Info dialog. There is no path to it ... it looks like a top level folder. ...
    – NotationMaster
    Dec 6, 2020 at 19:54
  • @NotationMaster can you open up terminal and drag the folder on top of the terminal window? That should print the real location of it. If it refuses, it might be some kind of virtual folder.
    – At0micMutex
    Dec 7, 2020 at 0:17
  • After removing it from Sidebar I cannot locate the folder anymore.
    – NotationMaster
    Dec 7, 2020 at 12:07
  • @NotationMaster you can add it back using Finder's Preferences
    – malhal
    Feb 11, 2021 at 9:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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In Big Sur, ~/Library/Containers shows in Finder as ‘On My Mac’.

This is a trimmed down version of the Documents from each of those containers, only showing apps which open their Documents on macOS like iOS for visibility in the Files app.

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  • On my system (macOS 11.2), ~/Library/Containers still shows all containers, except that it displays the app's names instead of their bundle identifiers (when the app is still around at least). "On My Mac" only shows those containers which have at least one file (not folder) in their Data/Documents subfolder.
    – Martin
    Jan 31, 2021 at 15:53

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