Is case sensitivity the default for any Mac?

Our macOS application does not support case sensitive file systems. We have customers claiming that they purchased a new Mac and it was case sensitive by default without them taking any action.

I am looking for an authoritative answer to the question: Is there any Mac that ships case sensitive by default? Or is this something that the end user must configure?

Answered by DTS Engineer in 803059022
Our macOS application does not support case sensitive file systems.

Honestly, I think you should focus your efforts on fixing that.

Is there any Mac that ships case sensitive by default?

That depends on what you mean by “default”. It’s perfectly feasible for a user’s home directory to be on a case-sensitive file system through no fault of their own. For example, they get a new Mac, attach it to their enterprise’s network, and log in as an account with a network home directory.

Those folks have suffered enough; there’s no need for you to make it worse (-:

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Mac and it was case sensitive by default without them taking any action.

What do you mean exactly by Mac is case sensitive ? Do you mean Finder ?

Which version of MacOS ?

What problem does this cause in your app ?

On a Mac with 14.6.1 (23G93), if I have 2 files names : A File and A file, they are considered the same name (not case sensitive).

But when sorting files by name, upper / lower case is taken into account.

Our macOS application does not support case sensitive file systems.

Honestly, I think you should focus your efforts on fixing that.

Is there any Mac that ships case sensitive by default?

That depends on what you mean by “default”. It’s perfectly feasible for a user’s home directory to be on a case-sensitive file system through no fault of their own. For example, they get a new Mac, attach it to their enterprise’s network, and log in as an account with a network home directory.

Those folks have suffered enough; there’s no need for you to make it worse (-:

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Thanks for your replies. I'm not asking for advice on how to solve the problem in my app at this point. The app uses a library of content that has hundreds of thousands of mixed case files that go back many many years, and is used by both Windows and Mac versions.

I'm looking for a yes or no answer. Ignore the network issue that Quinn mentioned - but thank you for highlighting that issue, I was not aware of it - you are always very thorough. But assume that this is the user's own Mac and it is not connected to a network that could have this problem.

This is the scenario. A customer contacts me and says he bought a new Mac, and it is formatted with a case sensitive filesystem (presumably APFS case sensitive) so he can't use my program. He claims that Apple is moving towards case sensitivity and this will be the new normal so he wants his money back.

Is it possible that this customer's Mac WAS shipped like this from Apple, or would there have had to been some user intervention to reformat the system. I feel like this is a yes or no question.

Accepted Answer
I feel like this is a yes or no question.

I admire your optimism.

I’m not aware of any scenario where we’ve shipped a consumer Mac [1] where the root volume was formatted to be case sensitive. OTOH, Apple is a big company with a bazillion products so I can’t give you the guarantee you’re looking for.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

[1] It wouldn’t surprise me if we did it for some server configurations, back when that was a thing.

Is case sensitivity the default for any Mac?
 
 
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