What are these iChat docs doing on my macbook?

Question

Level 1

2 points

What are these iChat docs doing on my macbook?

Lately, I've been finding documents labled iChat buried (hidden?) inside document folders. The only way I can see them is by doing a spotlight search for the term "doc". They show up as living in the "documents" folder under files like:

Documents - com.apple.WeatherK... (I can't read the rest)

Documents - com.apple.geod

Documents - com.apple.MediaLibrary

Documents - com.apple.PhotoApp...

Documents - com.apple.IWork.Numbers

The latter appeared after I started a new documents using Numbers. I haven't used that program since I restored my computer.

What I see is a folder icon with about 32mg of data. I click on the documents icon and the finder opens showing a document icon named iChat.

I never use iChat or Facebook. I'm the victim of continual hacking by a particular person. For the most part I just live with it because there is nothing I can do about it. He isn't stealing anything, just checking out how much money I have or what charges I've made on a credit card. Though he did recently expunge my entire identity from my AMEX card.

Activity has picked up a lot recently and so I thought I'd ask about this. Is it malware? He lives in India, so if it's hacking it was downloaded. I noticed the same thing on my son's computer. Maybe it's just a thing I don't understand. But it seems weird and I'm feeling paranoid.

PS: I'm actually running Yosemite, not Mavericks.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)

Posted on Jan 8, 2015 1:47 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 9, 2015 12:52 PM in response to hulsifer

Hi,

In Mavericks or Yosemite you don't have an iChat App.

However the system still calls some parts of the Messages app by the iChat bundle title. (At Mountain Lion iChat became Messages with the adding of the iMessages account to the set up and a fairly major interface overhaul).

Previously the default place for Saved Chats in iChat was ~/Documents/iChats

However I have nothing in my ~/Documents folder that starts com.app.app name

If I use Spotlight and enter "Doc" as the search item it lists many things in small groups with titles.

The Documents one can be expanded to Show All and I still don't see any items that com.apple... (The results shown do show many items that are "documents" of several apps that I have such as items inside Dreamweaver from CS 3)

Are you using some other Find tool ?

If you are you may be seeing items in ~/Library/Containers that do start com.apple.app name

If I look in that Folder I can see some of the ones you list when I use the Modified column

Obviously the Path Bar is also shown and the ones at the top of this list are the one changed by apps I have opened today (or that the System has used)

8:52 pm Friday; January 9, 2015

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

Reply

Answer 2

hulsifer Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 10, 2015 1:57 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

I'm doing a spotlight search for the term "doc". I go to the search icon on the top right hand of my screen. Here is a screen shot of what shows up.

As you can see, this is what I see. Today, everything looks fine. Some days I see that the document folder has something in it taking up 6-32mg of space. I click on the document icon and I can see an icon called iChat in the folder. If I try to open it I get a message telling me that there isn't any iChat. I'll write back with an example of what I mean when it shows up again. I'm hoping it won't because I used terminal to see all my invisibles and deleted some things that looked fishy. So far my computer hasn't exploded so I guess that was okay.

Thank you for responding. Please let me know if you have any other thoughts.

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 10, 2015 2:11 PM in response to hulsifer

Hi,

Do this:-

In Any Finder window go to the View Menu and chose "Show Path Bar"

Then Double Click any of those Documents.

You will find they are placed all over the drive.

It took me adding a u to make "docu" to get this

Double Clicking it got me this

That is to say, in my Home Folder/Library/Containers is the com.ceruleanstudios.trillian.osx/Data folder(s) one of which is Documents with an Alias in this case back to the iChats folder.

Only one is for the actual Documents folder itself.

10:11 pm Saturday; January 10, 2015

 iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

Reply