JPG files copied to a PC oddity

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Level 2

434 points

JPG files copied to a PC oddity

I've had this problem for a while so it isn't just the latest OS. When I copy a group of .JPG files on my MAC to a thumb drive and then look at the directory using a PC of the thumb drive I copied the files onto I see what appears to be a bunch of Apple thumbnail files in addition to the .JPG files. I don't see it while my Mac is looking at the directory but the PC does see it. So I end up using a PC to delete all those thumbnails on the thumbdrive for PC's before I give it to someone as PC users get confused with all those duplicate files.

How do I keep my Mac from creating those thumbnail files or how do I see it on a Mac where I can delete them before giving them to a PC user?

Thanks... Gary

iDVD '08

Posted on Dec 27, 2016 1:09 PM

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Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

58,518 points

Dec 27, 2016 1:20 PM in response to Gary Cox1

Those are AppleDouble files. The ones starting with ._ are the each file's resource fork data. You don't see them on your Mac because items starting with a period are automatically hidden. You can delete all of them if you want.

There are ways to remove them with the OS, but if you do this a lot, it will get very tedious. In which case, you may want to consider BlueHarvest. It will automatically prevent the creation of AppleDouble files on DOS formatted drives.

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Answer 2

Dec 27, 2016 5:17 PM in response to Gary Cox1

Once you have copied your images with Finder, onto your mounted thumb drive, you can then purge all of those AppleDouble files with one invocation of the dot_clean command from the Terminal:

$ man dot_clean

$ dot_clean -m /Volumes/Thumbdrive

You could put this as a do shell script in AppleScript, save it as an application, and then command drag/drop that application icon onto your Finder toolbar. Then you avoid the Terminal, and can just click the Finder toolbar icon to rid yourself of the AppleDouble files on the thumb drive.

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