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Nickholl Author

Level 1

48 points

Ive a strange file on my hard drive with no name

Ive a strange file that has suddenly appeared on my hard drive with no name - would anybody know what it is and if I can delete it?

here's the content...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<dict>

<key>MTMUUID</key>

</dict>

</plist>

thanks!

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Dec 10, 2015 3:23 PM

Top-ranking reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,728 points

Posted on Dec 10, 2015 3:32 PM

Appears to be a bug: http://www.openradar.me/23549929

From the description there, it is a plist for local snapshots from Time Machine.

My guess is the UUID matches the UUID for your hard drive.

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20 replies

Nickholl Author

Level 1

48 points

Mar 29, 2016 5:21 AM in response to Nickholl

looks like i wasn't patient enough 🙂 Deleted it again, and after waiting a while, time machine seems to be backing up fine

RickReed

Level 1

19 points

Jun 7, 2016 9:10 AM in response to Nickholl

I have this file too.

MTMUUID probably stands for Mobile Time Machine UUID - which is what it seems to store.

See explanation at <http://www.openradar.me/23549929>. It seems to be used/created for MobileBackups by Time Machine.

Probably this file should be invisible.

Apple Support person I spoke to today is meant to be finding out what it is for and sending me an email.

RickReed

Level 1

19 points

Jun 7, 2016 10:17 AM in response to RickReed

BTW I checked the filename in Terminal with the command

ls -Bal

and got the result:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 263 1 Apr 10:15 \001

followed by all the other files in the / directory.

So my file is also has a single \001 character as its file name.

I changed the file to make it invisible.

I typed 'bash' in Terminal to enter the bash shall.

I then entered the command:

sudo chflags -v hidden $'\001'

after input of my password for the sudo, it responded with an apparently blank line (the invisble file name).

I checked the result at the bash-3.2$ prompt with the command:

ls -Bal

and got the result

-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 263 1 Apr 10:15 \001

followed by all the other files in the / directory.

The file is no longer displayed by Finder.

paulie88

Level 1

8 points

Jun 13, 2016 6:04 AM in response to Martin M.

This is probably the answer to the whole business. I never noticed that file until I made a clone of my boot drive with CCC yesterday. In any case, it is now visible (or exists) on both my boot drive and the clone, and according to time machine, it has existed since March 4th. Was there a system update around that time?

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Jun 13, 2016 6:23 AM in response to Nickholl

You have 2 good replies: Barney and VikingOS.

I suggest following:

Open Terminal:

copy paste following command:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

(then enter your password)

Quit Terminal

After that all local snapshots should be gone including this "noname" file.

If you want Local Snapshots again:

after the next computer restart, open Terminal and copy paste

sudo tmutil enablelocal

Lex

Ive a strange file on my hard drive with no name