What is the maximum file size supported by the APFS file system?

The maximum file size supported by APFS is 8 exabytes.

Apple File System, usually called APFS, expresses this limit as 2^63 bytes: 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 bytes. The figure is a theoretical filesystem limit, not a capacity users can realistically reach on today’s Macs, iPhones, or storage devices. Physical disk capacity, operating-system APIs, available free space, and application limits are much smaller in practice.

APFS became the default filesystem for macOS High Sierra 10.13 and was also adopted across Apple’s other platforms. It replaced HFS+ with a design aimed particularly at flash and solid-state storage. Important features include copy-on-write metadata, snapshots, space sharing between volumes, cloning, encryption, and fast directory sizing.

The answer is sometimes confused with 16 exabytes, a number associated with other filesystem limits or theoretical addressing schemes. Another distinction matters: maximum file size is not the same as maximum volume or container size. APFS can manage extremely large logical objects, but the actual limit for a particular Mac depends on the storage hardware and software environment.