How to Locate Mac or Windows Font Files

Use the extensions to identify the type of fonts you find

What to Know

• Default location for Windows: Windows/Fonts.
• Default location for macOS: System >Library >Fonts.
• Font files, which have filename extensions such as .ttf, .ttc, and .otf, may reside in other folders; try searching for *.[filename extension].

This article shows you how and where to find font files on your Windows or Mac computer.

Windows TrueType and OpenType Fonts

The default location for installed TrueType and OpenType fonts under Windows 95 and above is the Windows/Fonts folder, although the actual files may be anywhere.

All Windows TrueType fonts have an extension of .ttf or .ttc. OpenType fonts have an extension of .ttf or .otf.

In directories and folders other than the Windows Font folder, the Details View doesn’t show the font name; it only shows the filename. However, if you double-click the filename, it displays the name of the font.

Windows Type 1 Fonts

The default location for Type 1 fonts is either the psfonts or the psfonts/pfm directory. As with TrueType fonts, the files may be located anywhere.

Use Adobe Type Manager (ATM) or other font-management software to locate both of the needed files for a Type 1 (PostScript) font. With ATM open, highlight a font name in the Fonts window then choose File > Properties. A pop-up window displays the complete path to two files.

Each Windows Type 1 font uses a .pfm and a .pfb file. The icon for both the .pfb and .pfm files is a dog-eared page with a lowercase script ‘a’ for Adobe.

Macintosh TrueType and OpenType Fonts

Locating fonts and files in a Mac is somewhat easier than in Windows. The default location for all System fonts in System 7.1 and later is the Fonts folder inside the System folder. Here’s where these fonts are located.

There is only one file for each TrueType or OpenType font. The TrueType file extension is .ttf or .ttc. The OpenType file extension is .otf or ttf.

Under the Go menu in macOS Finder, select Computer.

Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Command+C.

Select Macintosh HD.

Open the System folder.

Select Library.

The fonts are in the Fonts folder.

Macintosh Type 1 Fonts

You won’t find many Postscript Type 1 fonts on a Mac. Look for these fonts in the user’s Library > Fonts and in the computer’s Library > Fonts. Here’s where to find these fonts.

If you move a Type 1 font or send a font to someone, transmit both the bitmap (screen) suitcase and outline (printer) file for each Type 1 font.

From the Finder menu on the desktop, click Go while holding down the Option key.

Select Library.

Open the Fonts folder.

The font files are in that folder.

The bitmap font icon appears as a dog-eared page with the letter A. Each bitmap filename for Type 1 fonts includes the point size (Times 10, for example). Under System 7.1 or later, all the bitmap files for a font are in a suitcase in the Fonts folder.

The outline file icon appears as a letter A in front of horizontal lines. Most Type 1 outline files are named using the first five characters of the font name, followed by the first three characters of each style (HelveBol for Helvetica Bold and TimesBolIta for Times Bold Italic, for example). An outline filename does not include a point size.

Font Types and Filenames

Truetype and OpenType fonts consist of a single file each. Adobe Postscript Type 1 fonts require two files to work properly—a .pfm (Printer Font Metrics) screen font file and a .pfb (Printer Font Binary) printer font file.

Filenames for fonts are cryptic at best. The extension is usually the best indicator of the type of font you have. For Type 1 fonts, the two files are often located in different folders.

What is the font folder in windows 7

Font folder in Windows Vista/7

I just want to make sure, but is the font folder in Windows 7 and in Vista still «C:\WINDOWS\fonts» ?

If not, or if it’s changeable, is there an available ENVAR that will point me there?

4 Answers 4

To my knowledge it’s still at that location. Are you having problems installing fonts?

You should use %windir%\Fonts in case the local installation of Windows is not in C:\Windows .

They are still there. Fonts can be installed outside of that directory by checking an option in control panel -> font settings, but even then you install the fonts by placing a shortcut in the fonts folder.

They are still there. Fonts can be installed outside of that directory by checking an option in control panel -> font settings, but even then you install the fonts by placing a shortcut in the fonts folder.

Great advice but what are the steps for doing this. This is like giving a little child a candy in a wrapper that they cant open. Unfortunately many forums are like this, only half of the solution is given or people post a problem but there is no FIX shown.

Becomes a total waste of time, I avoid most forums and answer sites for this reason. Frustrating to say the least.

Try This(worked for me) Start:Run: copy «%windir%\Fonts» from above and paste it into the open box and click ok. Sends you to Add Fonts Under folders (c:\windows\fonts) Click on Fonts Folder. list of fonts box will now populate. Find the font you want and click on install

Where are the physical font files stored?

When we go Control Panel >> Appearance and Personalization >> Fonts, the window shows a list of fonts currently installed on the system. We can copy those font files out (Ctrl-C) to a new location,

But where are the original physical font files stored?

Based on this thread, I’d thought that the files are stored in C:\Windows\Font, but it seems to be a virtual folder, Specifically when I download TypeLight (runned the program as administrator) and tried to open the font files in C:\Windows\Font, none are listed:

5 Answers 5

They are stored in the Windows SxS cache, where hard links are created from. Here is an example (64b):

Searching C:\Windows\WinSxS for truetype- will give all these folders, searching for *.ttf or *.otf will give all the font files that are stored in that folder. The reason your application doesn’t see these files is because it doesn’t support the aggregating approach the Control Panel uses. At best you can attempt to type the file name and get around.

For an overview, use dir %SYSTEMROOT%\Fonts .

The Link Shell Extension allows you to enumerate the hard links in the Link Properties tab:

C:\Windows\Fonts is indeed where the font files are stored (assuming that c:\windows is the operating system root, which is usually the case). You can double-check this by starting a command-line window (type cmd.exe in the Start Menu) and saying:

I suspect that TypeLight is misbehaving, perhaps because Fonts is considered a special folder by the Windows shell.

Explorer will aggregate font files in C:/Windows/Fonts, making the directory sometimes unintuitive to navigate.

To see the Font hardlinks as files, paste the host address into the Explorer address bar:

The computer name can be seen by right-clicking This PC on Desktop, and then viewing Properties.

I know that this post is old but here’s a trick that could help you retrieve your installed fonts files:

First, you need to have 7-zip installed. (It could work with WinRar, though).

Go to your fonts folder (C:\Windows\Fonts) and select the fonts you want to retrieve from the folder. As you have noticed, you cannot drag and drop or copy these files from there as you would from any other folder.

To circumvent this issue, select the fonts, right click them and create a 7z compressed file. Save the file anywhere but there (Downloads folder, perhaps?). Then go to your compressed file, extract your font files and tah dah! 🙂

The actual font files (not hard links) are stored in C:\Windows\Fonts — unless a user has changed that default location.

As one person suggested, I opened a command prompt and typed in: DIR c:\Windows\Fonts\ and hit enter

(the DIR means «show me a directory listing of all files that are stored in the following location»).

Sure enough, there appeared a long list of files with the .ttf extension (stands for «true type font»). Those are in fact the actual files that contain all the font information. Some of these files as small as 63 kb. many more are 300 to 800 kb and some are even a megabyte or two in size. Files this size are not «hard links» — they are real physical font files.

To confirm there was nothing mysterious going on, I physically moved some new font files into C:\Windows\Fonts\ and. guess what? When I opened up Word those new fonts appeared in the drop-down list, ready to use.

What font and size is used in Windows 7 File Explorer Tree

I am having a hard time to find out which font is used by the Win 7 File Explorer in the tree view on the left hand side. Better, of course, would be if I can programmatically find out which the right font is (C#).

I searched the Windows 7 design guidelines but this particular scenario is not listed (at least I couldn’t find it).

So anyone good with fonts?

10 Answers 10

P/Invoke to SystemParametersInfo with SPI_GETICONTITLELOGFONT.

It depends on the language version of Windows. If you look at Robert Harvey’s answer, you’ll see a character that can’t be displayed by Segoe UI.

It’s Segoe UI. In the future, you can use WhatTheFont to resolve any questions you have about what font something is.

Actually it’s probably Segoe UI .

If you right-click on the desktop and select Personalize from the menu that pops up, you should find a place in there that will tell you what the default window content font is.

I took the liberty of capturing Windows Explorer with PAINT.NET (a great utility) and wrote the identical text above the captured text. Here’s what I can tell you. The Font in Windows Explorer appears to be some compressed form of Seqoe UI. There’s simply no other font that’s close enough. However, it become apparent when you have a long word or phrase that the width has been compressed and the pixels bleed (aliasing). I’ve not yet found out how to reproduce the exact spacing, but I’m pretty convinced of the following:

1. The font used by Windows Explorer is Segoe UI.
2. The point size is most likely 9.
3. The font is definitely compressed from what you would get using Seqoe UI 9.0.

It is not Segoe. I’ve spent the last three days attempting to reverse engineer Windows Explorer in Windows 7. Having worked with WPF and Vista, Segoe UI was my first choice for a font family, but I can confirm that it doesn’t match up exactly with what Windows Explorer is using.

After working on this subject for several months, here’s what I’ve concluded: The default font is in fact Segoe UI, 9 pt. (12 pixels). However, there is something going on with the ‘SnapsToDevicePixels’ in Win32 that isn’t or can’t be emulated with WPF. If you start to mess with the boundaries of your text in fractions, you can start to see some of the aliasing that goes on with fonts. For example, place a simple canvas in front of your text block and give it a width of, say, 7.5 and you’ll see your text start to ‘bleed’ into the surrounding pixels. I’ve played around with every combination of fractional spacing and fractional fonts and still can’t exactly reproduce the text we see with Windows Explorer. This leaves me with the conclusion that Win32 text is simply rendered with a different engine than WPF.

Add a font

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One way you can change the style of a document is by adding a new text font. To add a font to Word, download and install the font in Windows, where it will become available to all Office applications.

Fonts come as files, and there are many sites on the Internet where you can download free fonts, such as DaFont. You can also import font files from a CD, a DVD, or your organization’s network. TrueType (file extension .ttf) and OpenType (.otf) fonts both work fine.

Note: Before you download a font, make sure that you trust the source.

Add a font

Download the font files. These often come compressed in .zip folders . In one .zip folder, you might find several variations on the same font, such as “light” and “heavy.” A .zip folder usually looks like this:

If the font files are zipped, unzip them by right-clicking the .zip folder and then clicking Extract. Now you’ll see the available TrueType and OpenType font files:

Right-click the fonts you want, and click Install.

If you’re prompted to allow the program to make changes to your computer, and if you trust the source of the font, click Yes.

Your new fonts will appear in the fonts list in Word.

Here are two other ways to install and manage fonts:

All fonts are stored in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder. You can also add fonts by simply dragging font files from the extracted files folder into this folder. Windows will automatically install them. If you want to see what a font looks like, open the Fonts folder, right-click the font file, and then click Preview.

Another way to see your installed fonts is through Control Panel. In Windows 7 and Windows 10, go to Control Panel > Fonts. In Windows 8.1, go to Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Fonts.

The next time you start Word, you’ll see the fonts you added in the Font list.