DMG is a Mac OS X Disk Image file format commonly used for distributing OS X applications. Macs will mount the image on the desktop, giving the user access to its contents.
Think of a .DMG file as an intangible version of a CD, DVD or USB drive. It’s a “container” of sorts and once your Mac mounts it to your system, you can browse through its contents like any other file system. These disc images are often used to distribute applications — the user mounts the image, finds the software contained within, and moves the necessary files over to their Macintosh HD. The disk image can then be unmounted and optionally deleted.
For a more detailed description of this software installation procedure, read “How to Install Software from DMG Files on a Mac”.
Applications
.DMG files are intended to be used on Apple computers running Mac OS X. OS X ships with Apple Disk Utility, which is the software that works with DMG files. DMG2IMG is a tool that converts DMG files for use on other systems, and is available as a Windows binary, a Perl script, and as a source code package.
MIME Types
- application/x-apple-diskimage
