I just installed Stata 10 for Macintosh and my personal ado-files can't be found by Stata, what should I do?

In previous versions of Stata for Macintosh, the default location for storing user-written ado-files was in a directory named ado located in your home directory (~/ado in Unix lingo). Beginning with Stata 10 for Macintosh, the default location is now in Library/Application Support/Stata/ado in your home directory (~/Library/Application Support/Stata/ado).

Stata 10’s installer is supposed to help make this transition for you. If the new personal ado-directory does not exist and the old personal ado-directory does exist, the installer will ask you if you wish to copy your old personal ado-directory to its new location. If you click OK, then the installer will copy it for you.

However, due to a bug in Stata’s installer, the new location for storing a user’s personal ado-directory is created but the old personal ado-directory is not copied to its new location. This bug only affects the initial batch of Stata 10 CDs (look on the CD for the number 426 to see if your CD is affected).

To fix this bug, you must move your personal ado-directory manually. Open up your home folder from the Finder. Click the folder labeled ado and while holding the mouse button down, drag the folder over the folder labeled Library in your home folder and continue holding the mouse button down. After a brief pause, the Library folder will open. Continue holding down the mouse button and drag the ado folder over the folder labeled Application Support, wait for it to open, then drag and drop the ado folder over the folder labeled Stata. In short, drag and drop your ado-directory into Library/Application Support/Stata in your home directory.

Note: Folders and directories are the same thing. The term folder is typically used in a graphical interface context whereas the term directory is typically used in a command-line context or to describe a path.