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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/mihaip/infinite-mac/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Infinite Mac supports two-way file transfer between the host browser and the emulated Mac. You can drag files from your desktop into the emulator window to copy them onto the Mac, and files saved to a special Downloads folder inside the Mac are made available for download on the host. Both directions respect classic Mac resource forks, using ZIP archives and AppleDouble metadata to carry the fork data across the browser boundary.
File drag-and-drop and the Downloads folder are only available on emulators that support them: Basilisk II, SheepShaver, DingusPPC with BlueSCSI Toolbox enabled, and Snow machines that have built-in SCSI support. The last two present files via “The Outside World” disk. Mini vMac, Previous, and PearPC do not support file transfer.

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Dragging files into the emulator

1

Start the emulator

Launch any Basilisk II or SheepShaver-backed release (System 7 through Mac OS 9, most PowerPC releases). You will see an overlay appear when you drag files over the emulator window indicating where they will land.
2

Drag files over the window

Drag one or more files from your desktop onto the emulator canvas. An overlay appears confirming the target location.
3

Files appear in the Downloads folder

Regular files (documents, applications, scripts) are placed in the Downloads folder on “The Outside World” disk. Disk images (.img, .iso, .dsk, .hda, .toast, .cdr, .bin) are automatically mounted as additional drives.
You can also click the Load File button in the emulator chrome (next to the Home button) to open a file picker instead of dragging.

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Dragging directories

Dragging a folder onto the emulator window uploads the entire directory tree, preserving the folder hierarchy. On macOS, the browser can also read the ..namedfork/rsrc extended attribute alongside each file and upload the resource fork automatically.

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Resource forks and ZIP archives

Classic Mac files often carry a resource fork alongside the data fork — this is where applications store code, icons, menus, and other structured resources. Standard file systems on Windows and Linux do not preserve resource forks, so Infinite Mac uses a ZIP-based workflow to carry them across.
If you are transferring files that originated on a real Mac and need their resource forks intact, zip the files first before dragging them into the emulator window. Infinite Mac will:
  1. Unpack the ZIP archive inside the emulator.
  2. Detect AppleDouble metadata files (.AppleDouble or __MACOSX wrappers) inside the archive.
  3. Reconstitute the resource fork alongside each data file on the HFS volume.
If you drag a file that likely has resource forks but is not wrapped in a ZIP, the emulator shows a notification with a link to a blog post explaining the workflow.

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The Saved HD disk

Every session that runs on a supported machine includes an optional Saved HD disk — a persistent 1 GB HFS volume stored in your browser’s IndexedDB. Its contents survive page reloads, new tabs, and browser restarts on the same machine.

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Exporting and importing Saved HD

You can back up, restore, or migrate the Saved HD from the Settings dialog.
1

Open Settings

Click the Settings button (gear icon) in the emulator chrome.
2

Locate the Saved HD section

Scroll to the Saved HD heading in the Settings dialog.
3

Export

Click Export… and confirm. The Mac will shut down, and the disk image will be generated and downloaded as an .infinitemacdisk file. This may take a moment for large disks.
4

Import

Click Import… and select a previously exported .infinitemacdisk file. The existing Saved HD contents will be overwritten and the Mac will restart.
5

Save as a disk image

Click Save Disk Image… to download the Saved HD as a standard .dsk file (or .hda device image) compatible with other classic Mac emulators such as BasiliskII for desktop or Mini vMac.

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Persistence status

The Settings dialog also shows the storage Persistence status:
StatusMeaning
PersistentThe browser has granted persistence; data will not be evicted under storage pressure.
TransientStorage may be evicted if the browser runs low on disk space.
UnknownThe persistence API has not returned a result yet.
Click Request Persistence to ask the browser to promote transient storage to persistent. Whether the request is granted depends on the browser and the site’s level of user engagement.

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The Macintosh Garden integration

The Macintosh Garden library drawer (available in the emulator sidebar) lets you download software directly from macintoshgarden.org into the running emulator without any manual file handling. Files are fetched through a proxy, progress is displayed inline, and the result is placed into the Downloads folder automatically. For Snow-based emulators with SCSI support, files from the library are transferred via “The Outside World” disk rather than the Downloads folder.
If you need to pre-populate a disk image with content before deploying it, the import-library script (run via npm run import-library) builds the library metadata index from macintoshgarden.org. See the project README for details.

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