Finding and deleting files

Hi,
As an Automator newbie, here is what I did to delete all the .DS_Store files under a certain directory:
1) Find Finder Item:name contains .DS_Store
2) Move to trash
I was hoping this will find all the .DS_Store files under a directory and its sub directories and delete them, but turn out nothing was achieved, any idea what I did wrong here? thanks,

There are free utilities that will remove those files. Look for them at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
You are aware that although you may delete them they will simply be re-created by the operating system?

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Cant find and delete files

Oh boy where do I start. I don't want to sound like one of these windows switchers who complains that things on a Mac seem complicated but things on my new Mac mini sure do seem so complicated.
I've had my mini Server (2 x 1TB drives) only a little while, I'm running it alongside my Windows 7 PC which it is to replace eventually. I'm just familiarizing myself with it at present.
The only thing I've done was to import 300Gb worth of photos/videos to the 'second' drive to have a play with iphoto, big mistake. Iphoto constantly hangs and crashes, it cant seem to handle this amount of files so I deleted the pics/vids. I've put nothing else on the Mac.
I then notice that the 'first' drive (the server drive) shows 320Gb worth of photos/videos on it? They are the photos/vids I deleted from the second drive. How, I didn't put them there? iphoto shows all pics/vids still there.
I've spent hours trying to locate them, some seem to be on a dated folder: server-users-name-pictures-iphoto library-master (folder)- 2013-10-13-20131013-235601. Is this from me using Time Machine for a while? TM worked ok but the backups seemed to be getting very big so I switched it off and deleted all backups.
I only found the location above by taking a screenshot of a spotlight search, if I navigate in finder it only shows stuff up to 'iphoto library' nothing after. The 'iphoto library' is 75Gb but there are 300Gb in total. I've have finder set to show hidden folder. In iphoto I put the files into trash and tried to delete them, it deleted some of them but it very easily crashes. There are some files iphoto won't let me put into trash saying it doesn't support those files and to use Aperture. (I don't have nor want Aperture).
This is where I am now: some of the files seem to be in the dated folder above which I can't find (Finder doesn't seem very good at finding stuff). I can't delete the files from iphoto as it crashes very quick, in fact iphoto can now barely start up without crashing. I don't know where the other 200+Gb files are but they are on the first drive. The object is simply to delete all the pics and vids on the first drive.
No doubt one of you guys are going to show me some Mac magic to solve this problem in a flash making me look an idiot, well I'm cool with that just tell me what it is.
Thanks in advance.

iPhoto is, and always has been, a very cumbersome app. That really doesn't have anything to do with Finder though. I used iPhoto way way back around version 4 or 5, before I took up "Photoshopping". I've had it on every Mac I've owned, but I don't think I've opened it since 2006. The iPhoto library takes up MASSIVE amounts of space and the bigger it gets, the harder it is to manage. Adobe Bridge does a much better job, and so does Photoshop.
Once you get used to the ins and outs of Finder, you'll see that it's more intuitive than Explorer. Things it does that Windows may or may not ever do, like showing a complete file path from the top of window with just a right click on the title.
And that's just a start.

Find and delete files with common name in different directories

I have hundreds of invisible files in many different directories on my 10.4.11 server with .fstemp at the beginning of their name.
They are taking up space and I would like to delete them.
I can find them using
find . -type f -name .fstemp
But I can't work out how to use the rm command with a wildcard to delete them - I don't want to have to visit many different directories and run rm.
Do I need to pipe the results from the find to rm ?
For extra credit (you can probably tell I am out of my comfort zone here)... the files are all locked. I believe they will need to have
chflags nouchg /Directory/filename
applied to unlock them before they can be deleted. Can the terminal pipe find|chflgs|delete?
Thanks,
b.

Well, if they weren't locked you could just 'delete' them in the find command. Otherwise …
Open the Terminal (from /Applications/Utilities) and copy and paste the following into the Terminal window, one line at a time, with a return after each line:
sudo -s
find / -type f -name ".fstemp*" -exec echo 'chflags nouchg "{}" && rm -f "{}"' ; | sh
I have tested this, but obviously with some substitutions. You only need the double quotes around the curly brackets, "{}", if your filenames contain a space.
To be on the safe side, you should check this out without the final "| sh". Then you will see the commands that would be executed with the full version.
Finally type exit to get out of the root shell.

How to find and delete files

hi,
I am facing a strange issue. I am having sp 2013, sql , vs 2012,sp d 2013, caml designer etc. for the first few weeks , the SP and VS debuggingetc etc everything worked fine. now suddenly i am seeing that my C drive
is consumed some 235 GB+ space!!! Its strange, as I am not using any extra s/ws for consuming this much of space.
Can anyone help, where / how should i delete the unwanted space.
in my sql server 2012 DATA folder, i am able to see the below files with huge size.

Sometimes the drive get full because Volume shadow service.
You can use tool like Tree view.
To see the space has occupied by what and you deleted the unwanted data.
Thanks and Regards Rahul Dagar

I used time machine to restore on a formatted MAC. Now the HDD space has reduced by 100GB but I cannot see any of the files. How do I find and delete those 100GB data from the HDD?

I used time machine to restore on a formatted MAC. Now the HDD space has reduced by 100GB but I cannot see any of the files. How do I find and delete those 100GB data from the HDD?

dglenn9000 wrote:
I created a new user account just to see if it was my user Library or if there was something wrong with my system. And the new user account is doing most of the same things so I will need to do a full restore anyway.
Not necessarily. I'd suggest downloading and installing the "combo" update. That's a combination (thus the clever name) of all the updates to Leopard since it was first released, so installing it should fix anything that's gone wrong since then, such as with one of the normal "point" updates. Info and download available at: http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_8_ComboUpdate Be sure to do a +Repair Permissions+ via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) afterwards.

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 find and delete duplicate files in Mt Lion?

As a competent, but self-trained mac user for 30 years, I'm totally baffled by the sudden appearance of multiple duplicate documents and .jpgs in my imac files. How can I find and delete them?

Duplicate Annihalitor - http://brattoo.com/propaganda/ - or Decloner - http://www.pixelespressoapps.com/decloner/
LN

A mysterious audio file opens when I open my browser. How do I find and delete it?

A mysterious audio file opens when I open my browser. How do I find and delete it?

The other possibility is that someone with access to your machine (children?, co-worker?) set up all of your browsers to have that audio file set up as a default "home page". This is probably more likely than malware. I just tried with Safari, and it's definitely possible. Check out your Safari preferences and see what it shows as your homepage.

HELP!! How can I find and delete duplicate mp3 files.

I have a zillion copies of songs and I want to find and delete duplicate mp3 files. I have used MediaRage to find the duplicate files (16 thousand or so) but it can't delete them. It will take a million yrs to delete them manually. Does anyone know a way to do this quickly or a program that will do this for me. I have a 15 in Powerbook with OS 10.5.3
Thanks so much if you can help.

This site: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/ has hundreds of scripts (small programs that do stuff) for iTunes.
Bound to be something there for you.

Find and delete duplicate files on my macbook pro?

How can I find and delete duplicate files on my macbook pro. Just that i have so many and i think it is wasting a lot of memory etc on my mac! is there a simple and easy way to do so. Like i know in itunes you can just go to one of the opitions and show duplicates, is there anything like that with finder for my whole macbook?
Thanks in advance!:)

Decloner will compare the files themselves, not just by name or size.
For the latest version and faster updates, also to give the developer a extra 30%, choose the developers site version, simply hold control or option key to temporarily turn off Mountain Lion's annoying Gatekeeper to run the app.
http://www.pixelespressoapps.com/decloner/

My macbook pro keeps saying I have 450 gigabytes out of 500 that are used. But when I look on finder there are no files that are anywhere close to that amount. I went through and deleted files from my mac and now I only have 10 gs free

My macbook pro keeps saying I have 450 gigabytes out of 500 that are used. But when I look on finder there are no files that are anywhere close to that amount. I went through and deleted files from my mac and now I only have 10 gigabytes of additional space free. My mac now says I have 440 gigs of other that is used. But does not make sense, do I have a virus?

Since you have not identified the OS your MBP is using, these extract may or may not assist you.
http://pondini.org/OSX/LionStorage.html
http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
You may also download from the Internet OmniDiskSweeper (free) and open it it will show all of the files on your MBP and the respective sizes.
ciao.

Finding and deleting powerbook g4 files from macbook pro

I am finding old powerbook G4 files on my macbook pro and would like to find and delete them. Any suggestions/recommendations on how I can do this?

Go MBP (the best thing it has to offer is a PCI slot that the MacBook doesn't have). If you really need to use FM7, then cut the track on the iMac and import it into the MBP.
As far as Rosetta, it won't open a plug in that isn't the same version (i.e., PPC or Universal Binary) as the host. So if your Logic version is UB, then the plug ins have to be too.
If you can use FM7 in a stand alone mode, then you should be able to use it. I wouldn't recommend it because anything processor intensive tends to run crappy under Rosetta.
Hope that helps.
X

How to Find and delete Duplicated Files

When i bought my iMac 18 months ago, most of the files from my old G5 where transfer in this iMac.
Also, at this time, the G5 was connect in target mode to the iMac and I was copying files to my iMac when ever a files was needed.
I now realise I have lots of duplicted files.
How can I find and delete all thosew duplicates items? Is there a fast solution? Automator?
How about mail import, I also have lots of duplicate email. Is there a solution to all this?
Than you for your help.
BigBlaze

You can find programs to do what you want by going to Google and post the same question you did on here. One I noticed was GEMINI by MacPaw. Good Luck.

My start up disk is almost full, but I have deleted everything I can find - I think that when I upgraded my software it has saved the old one - anyone know how I can find and delete it?

Hi All,
Late last year I upgraded from tiger to leopard (very out of date I know) but ever since I have been getting warnings that my startup disk is full. I have deleted loads including pictures and itunes but still get the same mesage. I think when I upgraded the old version was stored somewhere and this might be causing the problem. Does anyone know where I would be able to find and delete - or alternatively have any other suggestions for what the problem may be?
Many thanks

WOW
80GB is a very small drive.
Sorry Noondaywitch, but omni disk sweeper isn't going to install in the space remaining, without more problems.
My Suggestions
1. Get a large (400GB+) USB hard drive
2. Copy all the contents of your home directory to the USB drive.
3. Delete all your files from your home directory on your computer after making sure everything transferred ok.
4. Perform a clean (destructive) install of Mac OSX and then the applications you need.
5. Check how much space you have left.
6. If there is less than 50% of the HDD space left (35GB or so), then consider replacing the HDD with a new larger one. If it's a white intel mac book, then this is very easy, and instructions how to do it are included in your 'everything else' wallet with your OSX DVDs etc.
7. If you can't replace the HDD, then it's time to consider a new machine i'm afraid.
Hope this helps
Justin

I used Duplicate Annihilator to isolate dups in iPhoto on my iMac. At the end it told me it had marked the word duplicate in the comments / description field. How do I find and delete the marked photos?

I used Duplicate Annihilator to isolate dups in iPhoto on my iMac. At the end of its search, it told me it had marked the word duplicate in the comments / description field. How do I find and delete the marked photos?

File -> New Smart Album
Description -> contains -> Duplicate
will find them.
Then the keystroke to delete depends on which version of iPhoto you have. All the keyboard shortcuts are under the Help menu.

Finding and deleting files

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