Why does mac use dmg

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Lifewire Technology Review Board Member. Article reviewed on Jun 07, Tweet Share Email. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! With files in DMG format, three-quarters of the same happens, since the file itself can be an installer that we unzip, period, or it can be a disk image that contains different files that have to be copied as is well in another file or on an external drive. Although at first it may seem that we are going to need to carry out a complicated process to be able to open a file in DMG format, nothing is further from reality, since we only have to click twice on it to create a new unit where we will find all the content that is inside.

Then only we have to access the drive in question and run the file to install or run. We must take into account the type of file that it is, since in some occasions, an installation itself is not carried out on our Mac, but the application only runs, so if we later delete the.

DMG file we will lose access to the application. In these cases, if it is an executable application, we must drag the file to the applications. If, on the other hand, it is an image that contains a copy of a unit, it will be useless to access the interior of the file to consult it if we are not going to be able to access the data or use the application.

In these cases, we must make use of Disk Utility, with which we can select both the file in DMG format that we want to restore and the unit where we want to do it quickly and easily. As in Windows you do not need any third-party application to work with files in ISO format, in Mac you do not need any application to work with files in DMB format, although on the Internet we can find various applications that allow us to do not really necessary , unless we are forced to open this type of file on other platforms such as Windows or Linux, where the PeaZip application is one of the most recommended, a completely free application.

Since the launch of macOS Sierra, Apple has natively eliminated the ability to install third-party applications that were not created by developers previously identified by Apple. If the DMG file that contains the application we want to install shows us an error message, stating that the file may be corrupt, we must activate the possibility of activating third-party applications by entering the following line in Terminal.

Once we have entered that command, we return to the Security and privacy section located within System Preferences and in Allow applications downloaded from: select Anywhere. A DMG file, as I have mentioned above, is a folder containing several applications, which create a unit when we open them, so it is not an executable file on Mac, therefore, we cannot convert a DMG file to EXE. Trying to convert a DMG file to an executable file is like converting a folder with photos for example into an executable file.

If we want to access the content stored in a DMG file on a PC, in Windows we have at our disposal various applications that allow us to unzip the file to access its content. Another issue is that we can do something with the content of it. And it turns out that the DMG makes a pretty good egg carton. Of course, other formats can hold a folder; what else makes the DMG so enduring?

This includes setting features like custom icons, icon positioning, and background images. Instead, the unzipping program just drops files into a folder, offering the developer little aesthetic control. Remember that disk images became popular and were adopted by Apple in the day of physical media. They would follow this by ejecting the CD and putting it back in its jewel case for future installations.

The disk image mimics that process, piggy-backing on a familiar user behavior. Images can also be read-only just like a CD , preventing the user from damaging or altering the known good copy of the application. Disk images still see a lot of use, even today. Along with their benefits, DMGs have developed a crust of tradition and expectation.