Newsroom Update
Final Cut Pro transforms video creation with Live Multicam on iPad and new AI features on Mac. Learn more >
Final Cut Pro transforms video creation with Live Multicam on iPad and new AI features on Mac. Learn more >
I have noticed recently that strange .plist files have been appearing in my Preferences folder.
You can see the odd looking files beneath the proper one. This was a few days ago.
I deleted the two files and discovered this new one today.
What are they?
Ordinary Preference files and what is so strange about those files ? To me, nothing strange
I have no idea what those files are but they don't seem like "Ordinary Preference" files to me.
The first 2 look quite normal:-
com.apple.FinalCut.LSSharedFileList.plist
com.apple.FinalCut.plist
But the later ones have weird letters and numbers following them together with being Zero KB. They are also listed as "Documents".
com.apple.FinalCut.plist.L1Z4RJ6
If you click on the OP's screenshots you will see the details clearly.
I have just found the answer whilst searching for an apparently different issue.
There was no sign of those weird .plists in my Lion setup but I did notice that every preference file was duplicated with a "lockfile" so I googled to find out what lockfiles were and the answer also included reference to the files mentioned by Richard.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20093292-263/lockfiles-and-other-plist-file -subtypes-in-os-x- lion/
Apparently they are temporary .plist files which should auto-destruct but in Leopard and SL they can stick around.
Reading that, I looked at the preferences in my Snow Leopard setup and sure enough I spotted some with the random 7 character suffixes.
I'm surprised that I have never noticed these before as they now seem quite obvious.
What are these strange additional .plist files?
