Deleting ghost files

Question

Level 2

172 points

Deleting ghost files

I bought a new iMac with a much larger hard drive than my old model. This meant I could bring all my music, photos and videos from their external hard drive and into the new iMac.

The iMac crashed about 70% of the way through the first transfer attempt, but was successful on the second.

Everything is now singing happily, except I have been left with a huge number of grayed-out ghost files on the iMac from the failed attempt. I can't delete them and it looks untidy.

Can anyone advise me how I should get rid of them?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 29, 2015 12:56 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

May 29, 2015 7:46 AM in response to Norman Harper

Select one of the items in the Finder and open the Info window. If the Created date is January 24, 1984, see below.

Back up all data before proceeding.

Select the text on the line below by dragging across it. Don't include the blank space at the end of the line. Only the text should be highlighted.

touch -t 198001010000

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V, then press the space bar.

Now switch to the Finder and and select the item(s) in question. Drag into the Terminal window. More text will be added to what you entered.

Click in the Terminal window to activate it, then press return.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear. You can then quit Terminal.

Relaunch the Finder.

Reply

Answer 2

Norman Harper Author

Level 2

172 points

May 29, 2015 7:54 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you, Linc. I appreciate such a detailed reply and the time you have taken.

The date of creation for each file is listed as Thursday, January 1, 1970 01:00.

Modified date is Tuesday, January 24, 1984 08:00

1. Should I go ahead and follow your instructions?

2. Can I batch-process all 153 items, or should I tackle each one individually?

Thank you once again in advance.

Reply

Answer 3

Norman Harper Author

Level 2

172 points

May 30, 2015 9:48 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you again, Linc. I followed your very clear procedure closely. It did not appear to get rid of the 153 ghost files, but it did move me one step further down the road. After following your procedure, if I tried once again just to delete the ghosts directly from their folder, I got a new message reading:

Some of the items you are moving are in use by another application. Moving the items can cause problems with the application using them. Are you sure you want to move these items?

They were all .jpg ghost files showing as zero bytes, created January 1, 1970, Modified January 1, 1980. No .jpg-related or photo software was running. I had active, working copies of all 153 images, so I figured it was worth the risk.

They deleted perfectly and in the 24 hours since, with a couple of experimental restarts for good measure, I have hit no problems with anything photo-related. Everything seems to be singing again and I have a tidy folder.

Thank you for your advice and patience.

Reply