Junk left over from Lion - can I delete it?

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Level 5

5,556 points

Junk left over from Lion - can I delete it?

Having reverted from Lion 10.7 to SL 10.6.8, I find some folders that I think are Lion specific (I know, I did it the wrong way; I should have wiped the disc before cloning back...but its too late now as I already updated a load of stuff, then re-cloned my source to update it before I noticed this stuff).

Can anyone tell me which of these I can safely delete? I'm assuming I definitely don't need DocumentRevisions-P100, not sure about the Spotlight-P100. I s that Lion specific Spotlight file? I don't think 10.6.8 supports mobilebackups either, and have not idea what .hotfiles.btree is.

Any help much appreciated.

Posted on Sep 12, 2011 8:58 PM

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Answer 1

WZZZ

Level 6

13,238 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:32 PM in response to softwater

You are seeing a number of files/folders, the dimmed ones, that normally should be invisible. You DO NOT want to delete them. I'm seeing mostly 10.6 ones; there may be one or two that are Lion specific. I don't know Lion, but if they aren't doing any harm, just make them all invisible and forget about them.

Open the terminal and type or copy/paste:

To make visible.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

Reverting to the default of NOT showing hidden files ( use this one):

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool false

Restart or Force Quit Finder required to take effect.

killall Finder

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Answer 2

softwater Author

Level 5

5,556 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:31 PM in response to WZZZ

Yes, I know that.

My question is which of these are Lion specific and not required for SL. I know 10.6.7 didn't support versions or mobilebackups, and I'm pretty sure 10.6.8 didn't add it, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'd also like to ask if anyone knows whether the folder 'fseventsd' is a Lion-specific folder.

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Answer 3

X423424X

Level 6

14,271 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:39 PM in response to softwater

I'd also like to ask if anyone knows whether the folder 'fseventsd' is a Lion-specific folder.

.fseventsd is definitely not lion specific!

Also keep .hotfiles.btree

.Spotlight-V100 is the spotlight index, use mdutiul to manage it.

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Answer 4

softwater Author

Level 5

5,556 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:36 PM in response to X423424X

Thanks, that's one saved then! 😀

Anyone got any idea about the others?

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Answer 5

X423424X

Level 6

14,271 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:39 PM in response to softwater

I added two more to my reply (overlaped while updating).

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Answer 6

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:42 PM in response to softwater

You can delete 1 and 3.

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Answer 7

softwater Author

Level 5

5,556 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:46 PM in response to X423424X

Thanks. So the spotlight index in SL is also appended with V100 right? (Just checking...).

I'm not familiar with mdutiul (or is it mtutil?). A neither my system nor google searches on either revealed anything. Out of curiosity and to help me learn more, where do I find it and what can I use it for?

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Answer 8

softwater Author

Level 5

5,556 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:47 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thx Linc, that's what I thought, but wasn't wholly sure what changes had been made to SL in 10.6.8 (I updated to Lion from 10.6.7).

🙂

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Answer 9

WZZZ

Level 6

13,238 points

Sep 12, 2011 9:50 PM in response to softwater

This is from my 10.6

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Answer 10

softwater Author

Level 5

5,556 points

Sep 13, 2011 2:28 AM in response to WZZZ

Thanks that confirms what the other guys said and also saves me from doing what I thought I was going to have to do - find a spare bit of partition and make a clean install of SL to compare the root files.

One thing that interests me though - your fseventsd folder does not have the 'no entry' sing on it like mine does. Have you changed the permissions manually (I'm still wondering my copy of this is actually inherited from Lion, even though I know there must be folder with the same name on SL.

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Answer 11

WZZZ

Level 6

13,238 points

Sep 13, 2011 5:34 AM in response to softwater

Those are the default Permissions. The owner (deleted) of the current directory, .fseventsd (single dot below) is my user.

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Answer 12

softwater Author

Level 5

5,556 points

Sep 13, 2011 5:39 AM in response to WZZZ

Great, thanks. I'll compare that with my own.

I smell a Lion in my Snow Leopard's cage.... 😝

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Answer 13

WZZZ

Level 6

13,238 points

Sep 13, 2011 7:11 AM in response to softwater

Makes sense. Perhaps, as it is similar to the user Library being off limits in Lion, this would belong with that same general trend of restricting user access in Lion.

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