Deleting Hidden Files

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Level 2

310 points

Deleting Hidden Files

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get rid of hidden/invisible files on a jump drive. My wife has this digital photo frame that apparently runs off of some kind of MS-DOS file system. The problem is, I've deleted all files off of the jump drive with Disk Utility, zeroing out the data. Then when I go and add about 25 photos and try to put it in the digital photo frame, there are files that show up and don't display right on the photo frame.

I've tried to use Onyx and TinkerTool to get rid of them, but usually they just come back. I tried to put the pictures in a different folder, but the hidden files show up on there, too. Some of them show up on the digital photo frame, but there seems to be other files on the disk that even I can't see. I can only see them from the photo frame.

Does anyone have any ideas that doesn't involve using Windows?

iMac 24" C2D. G5 1.6 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Apr 16, 2007 7:33 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 16, 2007 8:20 PM in response to glb

What kinds of names do these files have?

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Answer 2

glb Author

Level 2

310 points

Apr 16, 2007 8:25 PM in response to George Krompacky

.DS_Store and Trashes...the first one shows up in any folder I create.

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Answer 3

Apr 16, 2007 9:23 PM in response to glb

Ah, that explains it.

I'm not the expert on this so I hope someone else chimes in. These are files that the Mac OS creates. I think that .DS_Store is the file that the Finder uses to keep track of files in a directory.

So, you can't delete these, because every time you format it the OS recreates them.

I don't know how to deal with this. I have found information on how to disable OS X from creating .DS_Store files on networked volumes but I don't think that would work for your thumb drive.

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Answer 4

glb Author

Level 2

310 points

Apr 16, 2007 9:23 PM in response to George Krompacky

Actually there is a program called DS_Cleaner that will do this, but I think they may have came back. Tomorrow I'm really going to have to sit down and try to figure this out. It's really bugging my wife.

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Answer 5

roam

Level 6

13,637 points

Apr 18, 2007 12:34 AM in response to glb

Hi gib
As George has said, .DS_Store files are created to keep track of things, though not the files in the directory but the window size, finder views, sometimes even icons, so every time you open a folder one will be created. They act as a kind of cache, and on a Mac they are invisible files, but when on a MS-DOS formatted disk, they appear under windows.
You can delete them but they will be recreated by the Mac every time, so it is rather pointless. They are there as a feature, to allow personalised settings to be retained, and to speed up the folder display. If you were to delete the hidden .DS_Store for the Desktop for instance, it would take a lot longer to load on a Restart.
On a Mac they are in every folder (but hidden) and deleting them to avoid seeing them on a MS_DOS disk will only be temporary.
You could buy your wife a Mac if it really bugs her 🙂

regards roam

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Answer 6

glb Author

Level 2

310 points

Apr 18, 2007 5:54 AM in response to roam

No we both have Macs. The problem is this digital photo frame. I told her to just take the jump drive to work and erase all the files on there except the photos and see if that works. We just won't be able to add photos to this thing without doing that every time.

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Answer 7

Apr 18, 2007 11:49 AM in response to glb

You might want to consider BlueHarvest or FinderCleaner, discussed here:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051121091532444

The first is shareware, the second freeware (but I've seen some reports of it not working).
Francine

Francine
Schwieder

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