.ds_store on phone

.DS_Store usually only gets created in a directory when that directory is opened in the Finder. I have hundreds of directories on my startup/internal and remote volumes that have no such file. I don't know if this particular phone-mounted-as-USB-device is any different. But from your Mac, try closing your Finder windows, then running Terminal.app and 'rm /Path/To/The/Directory/.DS_Store' at a terminal prompt.

Edit: /Path/To/The/Directory is probably something like /Volumes/ some-disk-name/ folder-name as appropriate to the folder you are using.

I suspect you cannot turn off the creation of these files. However, I already said you don't need a PC to delete them. How about '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/your-phone -name .DS_Store -delete' to delete them all in a single go?

Hi, Richard.

The issue of .DS_Store files appearing on your phone's storage (what phone?) is because the phone's filesystem is not the same as that on your Mac. Your phone's storage may be formatted for Windows or another filesystem.

Here's why .DS_Store and other, normally invisible files, may appear when you copy them from a Mac to another computer or device. Let's assume in the following that the device — your phone — is formatted for Windows.

When you copy or save a file from a Mac OS X system to a Windows shared volume or a Windows-formatted disk, the Mac creates two files: the data fork (xxx) and the resource fork (._xxx). This is called Apple Double Format and is normal. The resource fork contains additional data about the file that is exclusive to the Mac that cannot be saved otherwise on Windows-formatted disks. This is new with Mac OS X, as documented in Mac OS X: Apple Double Format Creates File Name With the Prefix '._'.

The resource fork files (._xxx) are necessary if you want to copy the file back to the Mac and retain the metadata. The resource forks of files are invisible when they are used on the Mac: the Mac OS Extended file system (aka HFS Plus or HFS+) uses forked files, with a file having both data and resource forks.

You can delete the resource forks on the Windows disk if and only if you don't care about losing the resource fork information should you copy them back to the Mac, such as comments, image preview icon, etc. Some Mac applications use the resource fork data, so deleting the resource fork can be problematic if you copy the file back to the Mac. Likewise moving the file while not also moving its associated resource fork when using the data on a PC can result in problems when using some files again on the Mac.

You can't prevent the resource forks from being created if you copy or save files from the Mac to the Windows share or Windows-formatted disk via Finder.

Finder will also create .DS_Store files on the Windows disk. These are related to folders you have copied/created on the Windows disk from the Mac. These files contain information used by Mac OS X's Finder regarding how a folder's window was last displayed, e.g. arrangement of icons in such, etc.

Some have reported using the donationware utility KopyMac to copy file from Macs to Windows shared volumes without the resource forks.

Note that some of the information above is from the "Mac-Windows Integration" chapter of my book, Troubleshooting Mac® OS X, Tiger Edition.

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

---
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:

I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

The .DS_Store files are created too when I copy files to my SE W800i phone using Bluetooth File Exchange.

And when I mount the FAT16 formatted volume on desktop via USB, these DS_Store files don't created if I use "iTuneSEnabler" (an app for Sony Ericsson phones). Contrary to that, if I use File Buddy to copy items to phone, the DS_Store aren't created too, but "._" resource fork files created, can't be deleted on the Mac. (the only way I know of is to delete the folder that contains the file(s).

FYI, all .DS_Store files contained in my FAT16 volume can completely be deleted by using Cocktail, including that one on the top level of the volume.

Here are my 2 questions:

1. How to I prevent ".DS_Store" created (on the Bluetooth side)
2. How do I delete ".Trashes" on the top level of the FAT16 volume. I had once empty trash using Finder, when I discover that I can't delete, it was too late.

Thanks

PowerBook G4 867MHz (Ti) Mac OS X (10.4.3) Billionton's USB Bluetooth adapter

PowerBook G4 867MHz (Ti) Mac OS X (10.4.3)

try this:

Mac OS X 10.4: How to prevent .DS_Store file creation over network connections
( http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301711 )

that will prevent them from being written.
they get written to Any networked drive (Mac, Win, etc) and they, as has been said here, save the finder info on the location, format, etc of a finder window.

you can also access them through the terminal if you know the path to your networked drives.

hope that helps.



dual 2, G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

I have the same problem with my SE K750i.
I tried to prevent the creation of ds-store files on network volumes in the terminal, but it doesn't work.
The same with Tinker-Tool, function sounds good, but doesn't work.
The only solution I found is to use Cocktail everytime after I connected my mobile phone with my mac, just one click and all ds.stores on my phone are deleted.
I had the problem with these resource-forks, too, but since i played with Tinker-Tool and Cocktail, no more resource-forks are created...I don't know why...:)
But if I had such resource forks, I would make all files visible, and simply delete them.


macmini Mac OS X (10.4.3)