Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I have these 3 files that I can't find, and maybe they are some kind of virus or malware or something. I want to get rid of them! How do I do that? I don't see them in the library preference folder at all
Another way to delete the files from Terminal is to use the tilde ~ . It always indicates the active user account. So as an example:
rm /Users/rickstrachan2/Library/Preferences/com.MicrologyAsia.DataStandard.plist
becomes
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.MicrologyAsia.DataStandard.plist
Thanks guys. I found them all. This was the first time I ever used terminal to actualy do something other than just looking at a few commands. It brings back the glory days of punch cards. So all those pref files are history. i will keep note to see if any of the small handful of non-Apple applications I use from Native Instruments, IK Multimedia and Submersible Music uses those pref files. Thanks you both very much for all your help, very appreciated! Rick
They probably have gotten a lot of calls from people who tried to save space by throwing it in the trash.
I also believe that was the main reason behind that decision. I've seen many posts in these forums where a user stated they threw out all kinds of files because they had no idea what they were for, so therefore, they must be junk. Not surprisingly, the Mac stopped working correctly, or at all. Like when a few have stated they threw out the hidden /usr and-or /bin folder. 😮
And those are just the ones we see here. You can probably multiply that by at least 10 for the number of support calls to Apple.
Richard, congratulations on a successful mission.
As for the pref files, generally what happens in the flow of things is the first time you launch some application program, a preference file or files are created by the application and placed usually within your Library folder ~Library/Preferences. Those are prefs specific to you. Local prefs, rather than global prefs.
If you then subsequently go on to change some preference within an application, such as changing the point size of the default application font for example, that change is stored within the pref file. On occasion a pref file can become corrupted, even to the point of the application being unable to fully launch, or making it freeze. In my example lets say you removed the default font you set your preference to.
We as technicians generally know where to go to find those prefs and we will set them aside and allow them to recreate as a way of troubleshooting and hopefully solving problems. You are "generally" ok doing that with application preferences, but you really need to know what you are doing when you start managing more system related preference files. I mention all of this because those prefs that you removed should become recreated if you were to launch those parent applications again.
It's always good to have patients and ask questions before making changes that may affect the way your computer functions. You score high marks on that and are now rated as a super user, :-)
Take care,
Tim
I want to get rid of these unknown pref files
