Where are .affont files stored for the V2 Mac apps?

[R C-R]

As the title says, I'm trying to find where installed affont files like those in the Publication Typeface Collection are or should be stored on my Mac.

It seems like a few months ago they were in folders named AffinityFonts, one for each V2 app (beta & retail) in each of those app's /Library/Application Support subfolder.

However, I have since deleted all 6 of those folders & installed just one of them (Pancakes) from my Account window in AD 2. It now appears in all 3 of the non-beta 2 apps but none of the 2 beta versions.

This implies there is a common location for storing them in all 3 of the retail apps & (I suppose) a different one for the 3 betas.

Anybody know where these locations might be?

[Old Bruce]

Here on my Mac OS 12.6.8 they are stored in each application's (Version 2 only, won't work with Version 1) folder in Application Support /Users/YOUR NAME GOES HERE/Library/Application Support/Affinity Photo 2 Beta/AffinityFonts

So if you have all three plus the betas you'll need to install them 6 times.

[v_kyr]

Other than that just perform a search in Terminal with find (see: man find) after those files ...

Quote

find ~/Library -name *.affont 2>/dev/null

find / -name *.affont 2>/dev/null

... etc.

... or use a macOS Spotlight search after those. - See also this thread for common searching after specific Affinity files ...

 

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Here on my Mac OS 12.6.8 they are stored in each application's (Version 2 only, won't work with Version 1) folder in Application Support /Users/YOUR NAME GOES HERE/Library/Application Support/Affinity Photo 2 Beta/AffinityFonts

Like I said, I deleted all the folders named "AffinityFonts" I could find on my Mac. That includes all 6 folders in ~/Library/Application Support/{Application name}.

8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

So if you have all three plus the betas you'll need to install them 6 times.

As I said, from the Accounts dialog I installed the Pancakes font only in AD V2 but it appeared in AP V2 & APub V2 as well (& was shown as installed in the Accounts dialog of them as well as in AD V2). But it was not shown as installed in any of the betas & indeed was not available in any of them until I installed it from the Accounts dialog of AD V2 beta. At that point it was available in the other 2 betas as well.

7 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Other than that just perform a search in Terminal with find (see: man find) after those files ...

Been there; done that. All such searches result in "zsh: no matches found: *.affont" 

For Spotlight searches I get a bunch of hits on "affont" but they are all in a folder where back in 2022 I had downloaded & saved the Publication Typeface Collection because back then they could not be installed from the Accounts dialog in the apps but had to be dragged into each(?) app.

Moreover, after installing the Pancakes font into the AD V2 beta, I now have in the Application Support folder of all 3 V2 betas a newly created AffinityFonts folder, but each of them is empty!

So I have to assume there are 2 places where these files are stored, one for the retail versions & another for the betas, but I have no idea where that might be.

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

As I said, from the Accounts dialog I installed the Pancakes font only in AD V2 but it appeared in AP V2 & APub V2 as well

All Store content installed via Account in V2 is installed in all three applications. 

[v_kyr]

5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So I have to assume there are 2 places where these files are stored, one for the retail versions & another for the betas, but I have no idea where that might be.

The Affinity reps should know and can probably tell you. - I recall that there were a bunch of macOS related installation issues threads for those fonts (where you also participated in threads). - Probably another unfixed bug for macOS apps so far.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

All Store content installed via Account in V2 is installed in all three applications. 

Yes, they are now but back in 2022 or so for the Mac versions they had to be downloaded & manually dragged into each of the 3 retail apps, which may be why @Old Bruce said they would have to be installed separately for each app. Also, IIRC back then, in the Accounts dialog the Publication Typeface Collection just had a download link for the entire collection, whereas now each font family can be installed or uninstalled individually from there.

So there have been some improvements in that respect, but (as I think it is & should be by design) the betas are treated separately from the retail versions But it is still unclear to me where these fonts are stored, other than I think there must be 2 locations, one for retail & another for beta.

12 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Probably another unfixed bug for macOS apps so far.

I don't really care if it is a bug or not. I just want to know where these files are supposed to be stored so I can see if I have some issue with my system that needs attention.

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't really care if it is a bug or not. I just want to know where these files are supposed to be stored so I can see if I have some issue with my system that needs attention.

I think Old Bruce already showed where those should (or are meant then) to reside.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, v_kyr said:

I think Old Bruce already showed where those should (or are meant then) to reside.

But that can't be right currently because 1) now it isn't stored on a per app basis & 2) even when those per app folders are present they can be empty or deleted without changing the in-app availability of those fonts if installed via the Accounts dialog.

So I think this is or at least is meant to be another improvement intended to reduce the amount of file space needed & make it a one step process to install these fonts on all installed V2 apps.

[Old Bruce]

Just now, R C-R said:

But that can't be right currently because 1) now it isn't stored on a per app basis & 2) even when those per app folders are present they can be empty or deleted without changing the in-app availability of those fonts if installed via the Accounts dialog.

I kept the downloads in my Documents folder. I will also admit that I find the fonts to be a bit twee... that is perhaps a wrong word. Regardless I doubt I will ever use them, not just because of their rather limited use due to the licensing agreement.

[v_kyr]

21 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But that can't be right currently because 1) now it isn't stored on a per app basis & 2) even when those per app folders are present they can be empty or deleted without changing the in-app availability of those fonts if installed via the Accounts dialog.

So I think this is or at least is meant to be another improvement intended to reduce the amount of file space needed & make it a one step process to install these fonts on all installed V2 apps.

I could imagine that the fonts during an installion of those are usually meant to be linked into the coresponding v2 version app (release or beta) folders here, in order to omit unneeded duplicate copies and thus to save disk space.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

I could imagine that the fonts during an installion of those are usually meant to be linked into the coresponding v2 version app (release or beta) folders here, in order to omit unneeded duplicate copies and thus to save disk space.

Yes, exactly ... but the question remains where are they actually stored?

[v_kyr]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

Yes, exactly ... but the question remains where are they actually stored?

Can't tell as I don't use v2 apps here under macOS. - But ideally or logically, that would be some place then, where also other among all the apps shared files are stored.

[R C-R]

19 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

But ideally or logically, that would be some place then, where also other among all the apps shared files are stored.

I have looked in the only place I know for that, which is in folders named 6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs & 6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs.beta (6LVTQB9699 is the Apple Developer ID for Affinity products) but no luck finding them stored there in any obvious place.

[v_kyr]

9 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I have looked in the only place I know for that, which is in folders named 6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs & 6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs.beta (6LVTQB9699 is the Apple Developer ID for Affinity products) but no luck finding them stored there in any obvious place.

As said before, somebody from Serif should know and can probably tell best how the whole is meant to be placed and work here. As we can momentary just speculate here!

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

But it is still unclear to me where these fonts are stored, other than I think there must be 2 locations, one for retail & another for beta.

Of course the retail and beta are treated separately. And yes, the handling of the .affront files has improved over the lifetime of V2.

The FAQ tells where all the per-application files, and all the shared files are stored. The .affonts files would come under shared, I think.

 

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

The FAQ tells where all the per-application files, and all the shared files are stored. The .affonts files would come under shared, I think.

Well, according to that they should be in ~/Library/Group Containers/6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs/v2/user/ but like I just said an hour ago, there is nothing in that location I can find that is an obvious place for them. Even after I add or remove one or more of these fonts via the Accounts window, the modified date of none of them changes, nor has it changed for any of them since last August.

[carl123]

Do you have an option like this on Macs?

 

[R C-R]

23 minutes ago, carl123 said:

ou have an option like this on Macs?

I do (for Finder, of course) but when I open it in AD 2 it shows me the same empty AffinityFonts folders I have already checked. It doesn't open anything in AP 2, presumably because there currently is no AffinityFonts folder in the corresponding support folder for AP 2. Same for APub 2 -- no folder so the button does nothing.

And just so everyone is clear about this, in all 3 apps I do have one of the Publication Typeface Collection fonts installed & available & nothing changes if I install more of them via the Accounts dialog.

[markw]

@R C-R Just so you aren’t feeling all alone here I’m seeing exactly the same on my system too.
My gut feeling is that they are ending up in the shared folders in Group Containers, as after installing in one app they are available in all, and likewise if uninstalled.
I even used Onyx to show ‘Hidden Files’ but still no sign of where the AF fonts are hiding so far...

[stokerg]

Hi @R C-R,

When you download them via the My Account option the fonts get stored in a hidden file, so that's why you can't find them.

When you drag and drop an affont file into Affinity, that's when it's added to the AffinityFonts folder in Application Support.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, stokerg said:

When you download them via the My Account option the fonts get stored in a hidden file, so that's why you can't find them.

In that case, the text in Settings that says "Store fonts (*.affonts) will be loaded from the Affinity Fonts folder on startup" is misleading & should be changed.

And I would still like to know the location of this hidden file for troubleshooting & backup purposes.

[stokerg]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

In that case, the text in Settings that says "Store fonts (*.affonts) will be loaded from the Affinity Fonts folder on startup" is misleading & should be changed.

 

Okay, that should likely say 'manually added affonts will be loaded from the Affinity Fonts folder on Startup'.

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

And I would still like to know the location of this hidden file for troubleshooting & backup purposes.

It's not something I can share, sorry.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, stokerg said:

It's not something I can share, sorry.

I have to wonder why it is hidden in the first place & in the second why you can't share that location with users. After all, when they are manually installed their location is easily found & there is even a button in Settings to show that location, so it is not as if we know this hidden location we can somehow do anything with its contents that we could not already do with the same font if manually installed.

Aside from that, considering that web access may not always be available or reliable, it would just be nice to know that if we are making backups like with Time Machine what parent folder needs to be included so they could be restored without having to go through the Accounts dialog to reinstall them or use the now cumbersome method of downloading them manually from the Store.

So as it is, I have to keep a manually downloaded copy of the Publication Typefaces Collection somewhere if I want to be sure I have a local backup or if I want to selectively install some typefaces (as opposed to the entire family) in the apps. Not very user friendly!

[v_kyr]

9 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I have to wonder why it is hidden in the first place

You can try to search after hidden files in certain directories ...

1. Open a Terminal

2. Go into some folder of your  this interest:

   cd <your_directory_of_interest>

3. Find the files with a name starting with a 'dot'.

   find . -name ".*"

4. You can redirect the resulting list to a textfile by adding  > textfilename to the last command.
   
   find . -name ".*" > yourtextfilename

 

Other than that see also ...

• Tips: Five different ways how to find your hidden files on macOS
• ... etc.