DMG files are neither safe or unsafe, but they may contain viruses or malware inside. Since DMG file is a disk image its safety depends on its contents. See contents of DMG file in the Finder Are DMG files safe to install? If the image contains an app installer you can see its contents by right-clicking on the app icon and selecting “Show Package Contents”. Once the image is mounted a new icon will appear on the Desktop.Īnother way to mount DMG files is opening them from the Disk Utility in LaunchPad. Double click on DMG files invokes DiskImageMounter app which is associated with these files by default. To mount the disk image double click on the DMG file. To start working with a DMG file it needs to be mounted. Think of DMG files as virtual disks, they can be mounted and unmounted like any other drive. macOS uses them to package multiple files and folders in one container which can be downloaded over the internet. General Information What DMG stands for?ĭMG stands for Disk iMaGe. For a long time, I thought that dmg file is just a special install package, but when working on the post about hiding files on Mac I found out that it is not so simple and I decided to investigate more. When you want to install a new app on a Mac, more often than not they will let you download a.