How to prevent DS_Store creation on external hard drives

How to prevent DS_Store creation on external hard drives?

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on May 5, 2013 1:34 PM

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1 reply

May 7, 2013 8:44 AM in response to osvaldogustavo

Hello there osvaldogustavo,


I found an article that I think will be exactly what you need. Its called Mac OS X v10.4 and later: How to prevent .DS_Store file creation over network connections found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629


To configure a Mac OS X user account so that .DS_Store files are not created when interacting with a remote file server using the Finder, follow the steps below:

Note: This will affect the user's interactions with SMB/CIFS, AFP, NFS, and WebDAV servers.

  1. Open Terminal.
  2. Execute this command:
    defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
  3. Either restart the computer or log out and back in to the user account.

If you want to prevent .DS_Store file creation for other users on the same computer, log in to each user account and perform the steps above—or distribute a copy of the newly modified com.apple.desktopservices.plist file to the~/Library/Preferences folder of other user accounts.

Additional Information

These steps do not prevent the Finder from creating .DS_Store files on the local volume, and these steps do not prevent previously existing .DS_Store files from being copied to the remote file server.

Disabling the creation of .DS_Store files on remote file servers can cause unexpected behavior in the Finder (clickhere for an example).

All the best,

Sterling

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How to prevent DS_Store creation on external hard drives

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