Apple Filing Protocol

The Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), formerly AppleTalk Filing Protocol, is a proprietarynetwork protocol, and part of the Apple File Service (AFS), that offers file services for macOS, classic Mac OS, and Apple II computers. AFP supports Unicode file names, POSIX and access-control list permissions, resource forks, named extended attributes, and advanced file locking.

In OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and earlier, AFP was the primary protocol for file services. Starting with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Server Message Block (SMB) was made the primary file sharing protocol. The ability to run an AFP server removed in macOS 11 Big Sur, and the client was deprecated in macOS Sequoia 15.5 and fully removed in macOS 27 Golden Gate.