Where's my C: drive? Find Macintosh HD on your Mac

Why it happens

Macs don't give drives letters. The built-in drive is named Macintosh HD, and external drives show up under their own names. Your own documents, downloads and pictures live in your Home folder, so you rarely need to open Macintosh HD itself.

How to fix it

1. Click the Finder icon, the blue smiling face at the left end of the Dock, to open a Finder window.

2. Choose Go > Computer from the menu bar, or press Shift-Command-C. You'll see Macintosh HD, plus any external drives, memory cards and network places.

   Finder›Go›Computer

3. Double-click Macintosh HD to look inside. You'll see folders such as Applications, Library, System and Users.

4. For your own files, choose Go > Home or press Shift-Command-H. That's where Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music and Pictures are.

   Finder›Go›Home

Still not fixed?

1. Want the drive one click away? Open Finder > Settings, click Sidebar and tick Hard disks.

   Finder›Settings…›Sidebar

2. To see it on the desktop, open Finder > Settings, click General and tick Hard disks under Show these items on the desktop.

   Finder›Settings…›General›Show these items on the desktop

3. To check how much space is left, open System Settings > General > Storage.

   General›Storage

4. Leave the System and Library folders inside Macintosh HD alone. Your Mac needs them to start up, so don't move, rename or delete anything there.

5. If you renamed the drive, it shows under its new name. If no built-in drive appears at all, open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder, and if it's missing there too, contact Apple Support. The drive may have a hardware fault.