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Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Mac OS knows where a file is even when it's moved. Does anybody know why this is?

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Of course it does. You use Mac OS to move the file, after all. :) – grawity Apr 8 '11 at 15:38
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There are several ways to interpret this question. My answer to a question on Unix.SE is responsive to one of them, as it discusses the internals of traditional unix filesystems (which---tobylane notes below---HFS+ shares). – dmckee Apr 8 '11 at 17:13

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In addition to the file's path, Mac OS aliases record several pieces of additional information: the file's unique ID, its parent directory ID, file size, [possibly creation time]; which are used to locate the most probable match in case of a broken link. I think most of the time a file is found by its unique ID, which does not change after a rename.

See also Alias (Mac OS) on Wikipedia.

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By the way, Windows is able to fix broken shortcuts in a very similar way (using an unique ID first, the file's timestamps and size if the ID lookup fails). – grawity Apr 8 '11 at 15:43
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The Mac file system is called HFS+. It uses inode numbers in a B-tree, with the physical and logical location (three parts in total). Metadata is in another b-tree, along with the data-forks.

So it knows what to expect in a place, knows of another way to refer to it, looks that up and there you go. It's like if someone moved house, you still have their mobile phone number to call.

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