Deleting hidden files

Silly question...but I need help! I have a flash drive that all the data has been erased from, yet the memory if full. I am pretty sure the deleted files are being stored in a hidden trash folder, however, I can find anyway to view the hidden files. Do you know how I can view the hidden trash folder on a flash drive, so I can erase it and free up the memory? Thanks!!

Ok, now you have two posts listed there so I am going to assume you are new to Macs and just not familiar with how they do things.
Now the terminal is the Mac equivalent of the Windows Command Prompt. (I'm also assuming you're a switcher).
If you navigate to the applications folder within it you'll find another folder called 'Utilities'. Open it and double click the icon called Terminal. A small window will appear.
If you copy and paste the text that VK suggested-then press enter, (defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles True; killall Finder) it should enable the hidden files, by the way when done use this new command to disable hidden files, (defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles False; killall Finder).
But as suggested if you plug the flash drive back in wait a few seconds the Mac should find it. (make the finder the active application ie. make sure it says finder in the top left of your screen and open finder prefs by pressing ⌘, go to the general tab and ensure that the show external discs box is checked).
The flash drive icon should pop up on your desktop. Once that happens click and hold on the trash icon until empty trash appears and select it. Your space should come back to you.
As for formatting, I believe VK has just posted.
Message was edited by: gumsie

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How to delete hidden files?

I am trying to delete two hidden files and have copied the given prompts exactly into Terminal and all I get is files not shown.

Files have permissions associated with them and if they are not yours, then you can't delete them without elevating your permissions level to do so.
System files are hidden and have special permissions for a reason, so you don't tamper with then and wind up messing up your machine.
Some files, even if deleted, are immediately rebuilt if a system process or program needs it, some are regenerated upon launching or rebooting the machine.
Some files deleted cant' be recovered at all and may cause the machine not to boot the next time.
LVNV1989 wrote:
I am trying to delete two hidden files and have copied the given prompts exactly into Terminal and all I get is files not shown.
The files may not exist at the path given, you entered it wrong, the instructions might be for another operating system or version of OS X and the files are no longer there.
What exactly are you trying to do?, what operating system and what hidden files are you trying to delete?
We can correct your perhaps misguided advice, or find a easier solution to your problem or tell you it won't work and why.
but we need to know more please.
If you don't want to tell us, then install the free TinkerTool and enable invisible files and you might be able to delete them manually, however if they are system/root files then your going to need to enter the Admin password for a "sudo" window of root power level destruction. At your own peril! Backup your data now before it's too late.
Good Luck

How to delete hidden files that I uploaded to Download folder

I read posts on delete but am concerned I'll mess something up - I have never used Terminal and am hoping there's an easier way.
I recently switched from Windows to Mac for my development computer.
I wanted to edit an .htaccess file for a web site I downloaded it to the downloads folder and of course, because it has a dot as the first character it turns out I can delete it. I was able to edit the htaccess file with Fetch, saved it to a web dev folder and upload it. But I still have an .htaccess file in my Download folder that I would like to remove.
What is the easiest way to do this?
Thank you!

The easiest way is to tell Finder to show hidden files. Open Terminal and copy this to Terminal window:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE && killall Finder
Then, go to Downloads folder and delete the file. Finally, return to Terminal and copy the same text but replacing TRUE for FALSE.
Alternatively, if you know the name of the file, you can move to Downloads folder in Terminal with the cd command and use the rm command to delete the file, but it's dangerous. Don't do it unless you are sure what you are doing, and make a backup

How Do I Delete Hidden Files in Compressed Folders?

I'm working on a mac and sometimes I compress files and send them to be opened on a PC. Is there anyway to delete the hidden files that mac adds to a zip file before sending it, or disable their creation completely? I'm thinking about getting a mac at home, but this could be one of the deal breakers.
Kevin

There are ways to make hidden files visible in the finder, but here I don't think that will help - the files you are seeing are CREATED by the finder, and you are presumably using the finder to make your zip files. So if you make these files visible and try to delete them using the finder before creating your archive they will probably just be re-created. You can delete any file manually in terminal, but I doubt you could do it within an archive.
Another solution would be to use a stand-alone application to create the zip files instead of the finder. Browsing VersionTracker I came upon "YemuZip", freeware at
http://www.yellowmug.com/yemuzip/
Again I haven't tried it, but it claims to be able to exclude the Mac-specific files that show up on PCs.
Some of these freeware utilities are very handy - at least worth a look.

Can't remove deleted, hidden files

Transferred large picture folder (1.6 tbyte) to new 4 tb external thunderbolt drive (2 by 2 tb, Raid 0) on new late 2013 macbook pro running Mavericks. Deleted this file, and emptied trash, and then used Lightroom to more correctly transfer this 1.6 tb folder onto the new thunderbolt external drive. This went smoothly. However, although Finder only 1.6 tb folder on drive, Finder/Get Info shows 3.2 tb of space used. About this Mac/storage shows 1.6 tb of pictures and 1.6 tb of backup. I cannot see this backup and cannot delete it. This drive is not a backup drive under Time Machine or for any other program. How can I remove this hidden file from this drive?

How did you delete that profile?
You can use "''Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory > Open Containing folder''" to go to the current profile folder and go back one level to the Firefox folder to see all the profile folders.

USB/SDcard deleted/hidden files

Hi All
I realised myself quite recently that files that were 'deleted' on a USB stick were still taking up space on the USB dongle. Anyway it didn't occur to me to empty the trash because 'windows' doesn't work like that, until that is I read some of the other posts.
Even so when USB dongles or SD cards that contain or have contained 'deleted' files I've seen that the iMAC has inserted new folders on the external dongle/SD called .Trash & .Spotlight. I only saw these folders & their contents when the dongle/SD card was connected to a Cyclone Micro Media device. This explained why the Cyclone doesn't recognise these 'deleted' photo JPGs & stops the slide show i.e. because they have two dots in the filename (eg .IMAGE001.JPG) which the Cyclone doesn't like.
Sorry to whitter on ... my questions are:
+- can the Mac OS display files that are hidden (as you can do on windows) in the Trash (or elsewhere for that matter)+
+- why doesn't the Finder display of the Trash identify the full path name - by that I mean identify the actual device that holds the 'deleted' file. It doesn't seem to me that the 'deleted' files on a particular device can be identified from the list? or havn't I found the method yet?+
+- would dropping into unix reveal such information and could you then delete the 'deleted' files held on a specific external device?+
thanks -- keith

HI red4vr,
welcome to the forums.
http://osxdaily.com/2009/02/25/show-hidden-files-in-os-x/ explains how to hide/show hidden files in the finder. As well as how to list hidden files in the terminal, and in the save/open dialog box. There are lots of hidden files on the computer that you should under no circumstance try to delete. A good rule of thumb is if you didn't make the folder, or what's in the folder; don't delete it. don't rename it, don't move it.
If this is some thing you want to do on a regular basis you may want to use a program like 'blind." http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/22495/blind this program adds a tool bar button to hide/show hidden files.
You are correct about the trash can, it shows every thing (not counting hidden files) in the trash for all the drives connected. If you want to tell what is on a specific external volume. You can goto that trash folder.
ie: finder, menu bar, go menu, goto folder, /volumes/NameOfVolume/.Trash
Have a great new year

HT3842 Deleting Hidden files?

How do you delete Hidden Apps Permanently?

Hi rjans1234;
Be careful! Generally files are hidden for a reason, that being so they don't get deleted because they generally are part of the system.
I would suggest backing up before you do this. I suggest you make a bootable clone just in case what you delete causes the system not to reboot.
Allan

I deleted hidden files on my bb curve 9320 now can't see some pics n vids help ??

I deleted some hidden files (yes I no naughty ! But something was munching my memory), I now can't see certain picture's and video's, Is there way I can fix this ?! As they are of my son :'(, I think I might of deleted a media loader but can't be sure I have 1 left in my device folder if this helps, would be greatful for any advice

Hi and Welcome to the Community!
You can try to do a full back up of your device using the BlackBerry Desktop Software including Building Media Storage if the option is there in order to see if that transfer that information to your computer to be able to save it there.
You can also try to synch your pictures & Videos using the BlackBerry Desktops Software to your computer.
You can try to take out the Battery wait then put back in & try to see the pictures or videos if there are on the device & was not deleted.
Please Advise
If it helped you, click like.
If my response has helped you, please click "Options" beside my post and mark it as solved.
Clicking the "thumbs up" icon near the bottom of my response would also be appreciated.
Good luck and let us know!

Can't delete hidden file from top level

Screen grab of what's happening:
I used to have it as a startup item until it wouldn't login correctly after a reboot (no login, guest login)
I then deleted it from my startup items but it still shows up every reboot. I can't delete it, I can't eject it (but I can connect to the real drive from the connect to server option)
It's an annoyance, I can't seem to get it out of my system unless I make a new account and I don't want to do that.
Does anyone know how to remove it?

Run all of the free OnyX cleaning and maintenance aspects and reboot
http://www.titanium.free.fr/
Next use the Verify > Preferences and mark down all the corrupted plist files, find them and move them to your desktop and reboot, they will rebuild automatically and you'll have to set the preferences for those programs again. (trash the desktop versions if there are no further complications)
That hopefully should do the trick, I think it's just a glitch and once OnyX cleans out the caches, ds store files etc., that file should disappear as everything is rebuilt.
Also it appears your having some other issues, look at those question marks.
Backup your files to a external drive via manual drag and drop methods, hold c and boot off the installer disk that comes with the comptuer and reinstall OS X on top of the installed one and reboot, hopefully that will clear things up.
Turn off Root user, it's dangerous to be running that all the time.

Showing and deleted hidden files?

I am trying to do a software update on my Blu-Ray DVD player. I downloaded the software from the manufacturer's website (Sharp), and placed the single file (which ends in .RVP) onto an empty USB memory stick.
I am unable to perform the update on the DVD player, because I get an error message that says there is more than one item on the memory stick. I am only seeing the one item, but Sharp tells me that the Mac places "invisible" files in there. They are not able to tell me how to delete the invisible files (nor how to display them)---can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

Enable Finder to Show Invisible Files and Folders
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following command line then press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To turn off the display of invisible files and folders enter or paste the following command line and press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Alternatively you can use one of the numerous third-party utilities such as TinkerTool or ShowHideInvisibleFiles - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
This would be done on the Mac. However if you do this from a PC the files will become visible in Windows.

How can I delete all components of Firefox 8 for Mac. Again...all components and hidden files. (YES, I did check the Moz web site but the page was essentially blank

I have an unstable install of Mozilla firefox 8 and need to delete ALL files from my mac running OSX 10.7.2. I went to Mozilla web site and got this but it does not populate with content:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Uninstalling%20Firefox?s=uninstall+firefox+mac&r=0&as=s#w_removing-user-data-and-settings
But nothing appears at this URL.

Please note I need all files removed including the hidden ones.
thx

When I connect my iphone to my itunes it says loads of space is being taken up by documents , however i have no documents saved on my phone to my knowledge. how do I find and delete these hidden files ?

when I connect my iphone to my itunes it says loads of space is being taken up by documents , however i have no documents saved on my phone to my knowledge. how do I find and delete these hidden files ?

I restored the phone so had no apps on it at all and there was still this certain amount of space used up by documents ! I've already had it in to the apple store and they didn't seem to have a clue either ! Ugh ! Wouldn't mind so much if the phone was free with a contract but I actually spent 450 quid buying this phone and it's always full of "nothing" so virtually unusable

How can I delete hidden video files from the iPad?

How can I delete hidden video files from the iPad? These files were created on my MBA and when I changed the media type to iTunesU and then copied it to my iPad via iTunes, they did not appear. I can see them using 3rd party software, but they don't have delete functionality.
Thanks
York

Interesting note: I can see the files when I use the search function, but when I tap either file, I return to my home screen. The video does not open. I can transfer the file to my MBA, and it plays fine, but I cannot figure out a way to delete them.

Hidden file when converting from raw to jpeg. How to delete this?

I just found out that when converting raw into jpeg in Photoshop there is a hidden file enclosed starting with ._ Computers don't see them but televisions do. I discovered this because I want to show a batch of my images on a television with a usb of a sd card. It shows my images and after each normal image I get a black image with a questionmark. It says 'cannot read this file' and it shows the name of the image but with a ._ in front of it. For instance garden.jpg and then -_garden.jpg. Computers don't read images starting with ._ but televisions seem to do so. I want to delete these ._ images because I cannot show a slide show of my images on a television. Anyone can help? It seems that this hidden file is incorporated into the jpeg file.
Thanks in advance!

Thanks. I have thought of this solution but these files are not showing when I set it this way. I had a specialist helping me to find this problem and he was very surprised that these hidden files didn't show up in his special program for showing hidden information. Only when going deeper and deeper into this program these files showed on his computer. As they are incorporated into the original file (the jpeg version) you don't seem to be able to delete them. What do people do when they want to show (jpeg converted from raw)images on their tv?
I have a Mac if that helps.

HELP! How can I delete hidden video files?

If anyone could help, it would be much appreciated:
I have a 64GB iPad (non-jailbroken) and used a video App called gplayer to move several large video lectures (about 30GB) via wifi FTP to my iPad so that I could play the files using gplayer directly off the iPad (which worked VERY well)....
...until gplayer had an update, and now for some reason I guess their filestructure changed, so my previous videos are no longer seen
(yet I now still physically on the iPad taking up 30GB space!)
Now, I need to find those files and DELETE them so I can free up the space...unfortunately I cannot find them using Windows File Explorer (I checked all 100 folders in the DCIM folders...which only had my photos).
I tried to email gplayer support, but they haven't given me a reply yet.
I already tried to UNINSTALL the gplayer App, and reinstall it, but It did not fix the problem.
Does anyone know a way to view the full iPad file structure, and find the "hidden" files so I can delete them off my iPad?
I know the files are there, as under my Settings/General/About icon,
the "Videos" section shows that there are "60" files.
(I don't have any Videos in the Videos App that show up, or have ever used iTunes to upload videos!!)
Thanks for any help!!!

thats a good thought. I will try to sync the iPad physically to the computer (i haven't done this in a while, since everything has been wirelessly done)
... but i have hundreds of apps, which will take a long time. Wanted to see if there were other methods before going down this route. I guess I'll have to check the "sync my apps" box in iTunes and try it out ... ?

Deleting hidden files

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