As the former Macintosh guru in Valdosta State University’s Department of Information Technology, I was called upon on several occasions to rescue hapless Mac-users who had managed to screw up their font installations, whether by monkeying with the fonts without knowing what they were doing, or by honest mistake.
One of the questions often asked was “Where are my fonts anyway?” Other questions included the every popular “Which fonts do I have to leave alone for my Mac to work?” or “Why isn’t font management in Mac OS X as easy as it was in Mac OS 9?”
Well, I can’t answer the question on ease of use, but the others are answerable.
Where are my fonts anyway?
In the old days of Classic Mac OS, the fonts were all stored in the Fonts folder inside the System Folder or inside the System suticase itself. This led to huge System files and massive Fonts folders, but it did allow everyone to easily find their installed fonts.
So for those who want to know where the fonts are in OS X, here’s a list:
| Location | Path |
| Program specific font folders | /Library/Application Support/application/Fonts |
| /Applications/application/Fonts | |
| User Fonts | /Users/username/Library/Fonts |
| Local Fonts | /Library/Fonts |
| Network Fonts | /Network/Library/Fonts |
| System Fonts | /System/Library/Fonts |
| Classic Fonts | /System Folder/Fonts |
Which fonts do I have to leave alone for my Mac to work?
Another popular quandry is what fonts are required to left intact for proper functionality of Mac OS X itself. The following fonts reside in /System/Library/Fonts and should remain unmolested:
- AquaKanaBold.otf
- AquaKanaRegular.otf
- Geneva.dfont
- Keyboard.dfont
- LastResort.dfont
- LucidaGrande.dfont
- Monaco.dfont
Other Mac OS X applications, such as Mail, iCal and TextEdit, require that other fonts also be installed.
For a more exhaustive article on this topic, as well as more detailed information on the required fonts and a comparison of various third-party tools that can be used to manage them, please check out the October 2005 issue of MacAddict magazine.