Hidden file deletion

Couple of times I tried to config, make, install an editor. Same editor. 2 different versions. Aside from that, what is below is what is left after deletion of various files in downloaded directories in both attempts. I have to get these items removed before dumping the empty directory. Are they ok to delete? DS_Store, I would imagine is ok to dump. But the . and ..? Thanks.
doug-pennington-s-Computer:/usr/local/bin/leafpad-0.8.1 pennington$ ls -al
total 32
drwxr-xr-x 3 penningt penningt 102 11 Jan 10:52 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root wheel 612 11 Jan 09:51 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 penningt penningt 12292 11 Jan 10:52 .DS_Store
doug-pennington-s-Computer:/usr/local/bin pennington$ ls -al leafpad-0.8.10le
total 32
drwxr-xr-x 3 penningt penningt 102 10 Jan 10:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root wheel 612 11 Jan 09:51 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 penningt penningt 12292 10 Jan 10:17 .DS_Store

doug pennington wrote:
So since there is negligible disk space used here in these two attempts, live with their(the 2 directories) existence?
I think you and Camelot may be talking at cross purposes here. You don't need to live with these empty directories.
Let's just forget about '.' and '..'—they appear in every directory. But there should be nothing to prevent you deleting the two directories:
/usr/local/bin/leafpad-0.8.1
/usr/local/bin/leafpad-0.8.10le
provided you get rid of the ".DS_Store" in each, or use rm -r <directory>, unless there are locked files in there.
To see if you have locked files in either of these directories, if you are using 10.4:
ls -aol /usr/local/bin/leafpad-0.8*
or if you are using 10.5
ls -aOl /usr/local/bin/leafpad-0.8*
See Dealing with Immutable Files and Folders for a fuller explanation of locked files.

Similar Messages

Show hidden files in Finder

I've been ripping my music CDs into mp3 files using iTunes.
I recently bought an HDTV. It shows the hidden files on the flash drive as well as the visible files. When I try to play one of the hidden mp3 files, the TV tells me that the file isn't supported. Yet if I scroll to the right, the TV shows the visible mp3 files. I had to use Windows XP to show the hidden mp3 files on the flash drive so that I could delete them. After I did that, the TV displayed the visible mp3 files & played them. Today, I tried to search for hidden mp3 files on the flash drive using Finder. When I use the Terminal to show the hidden files, hidden folders are shown, but none of the hidden mp3 files are shown. Yet the hidden mp3 files are shown in Windows XP. The hidden mp3 file starts with ".01_" followed by the file name & ending with the mp3 extension. Each track starts with a different number. In other words, .01_, .02_, .03_, etc. I don't understand why I can see the hidden mp3 files in Windows XP, but not in Finder. The command "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES" apparently doesn't show ALL of the files. Is it possible to change the Finder so that ALL hidden files are displayed just as I can do in Windows XP? I shouldn't have to go to my PC so that I can see the hidden files & delete them & then go back to my Mac. (Windows XP is the only PC OS that I have. I don't have Vista or 7 or 8.) Or maybe there's a Terminal command that will just rip visible mp3 files in iTunes & not both visible & hidden files. Or maybe there's software that I can install that will do that. If there's no solution, then I will have to use Windows XP to show all of the hidden mp3 files so that I can delete them all at once. I sure would rather use my Mac for everything instead of going back & forth from Mac to PC.

Perhaps I should have noted that DesktopUtility is free. I wouldn't spend money for that functionality, either.
Me either. Didn't notice that one was free. Everything seemed to have a cost on the various apps.
I suppose that it doesn't make any difference whether I enter TRUE or YES, does it? And likewise, FALSE or NO?
Correct. True, Yes, and 1 all do the same thing.
For the opposite, False, No and 0 are the same.
I've also been told to hold down the "option" key & right-click on the Finder icon & click "relaunch". I suppose that it doesn't make any difference whether I relaunch or kill the finder, does it? If I kill the Finder, I reopen it to view the hidden files, right?
Also correct. Doesn't matter which way you do it. The Finder automatically relaunches itself whether you kill it in Terminal, or relaunch it from the Dock (which is really the same as kill then relaunch).
I did see ".DS_Store" on the Desktop, but I didn't see any of the hidden mp3 files on the flash drive.
Now that is weird. You should see all hidden files and folders on all drives. Unless the Flash drive is formatted for Windows (exFAT, FAT16 or FAT32) and OS X doesn't treat it the same way.
TinkerTool and Secrets are two more free utilities that offer easy ways to toggle hidden file viewing.
Yup, there's lots of free utilities to do the same thing. OnyX will also toggle hidden items on and off.

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 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

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

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

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.

I have 182GB of hidden files in iPhotos how do I delete them permanently

I have 182GB of hidden files in iPhotos how do I delete them permanently - Help I have searched in finder images and cannot find them there or in iPhotos - please help
thanks

MDo you have an external HD you can store the full iPhoto library on? If so copy your library to it as your backup.
Then open the library on your Mac and create a smart album with the criteria Date is before XX/XX/XXXX. This will display all photos before that date. You can then select groups of about 100 photos and type Command+Option+Delete to move them to the iPhoto Trash where you can empty it. Then repeat for another batch of about 100. iPhoto chokes when trying to delete large numbers of photos.
Or if you know which Events you want to remove just select a couple and drag them to the iPhoto Trash bin and empty.
OT

Cleaning up hidden files after deleting iTunes media library

Recently I have been struggling with an almost full hard drive. Daisy Disk Utility revealed that a major culprit was a bulging iTunes - 90 GB!
In order to free up space, I have just copied iTunes media library to an external hard drive, successfully changed my iTunes preferences to point to the hard drive...that all worked.
I then moved my iTunes media library to Trash.
Most of it has now been deleted (there are still a few recalcitrant items I am trying to work out how to get rid of).
I now have about 20 GB more free space on my hard drive....much less than I had hoped to gain.
Daisy Disk Utility tells me that I now have around 68 GB in hidden files.
What can I do to finish the process of creating more space on my hard disk?

Yes. The following files and folders are in the Mac iTunes folder:
Album Artwork
iTunes Music
Mobile Applications
iTunes Previous Libraries
iTunes 4 Music Library.itl,
iTunes Library Extras.itdb,
iTunes Library Genius.itdb,
iTunes Library.itl,
iTunes Music Library.xml
iTunes Library.xml **this file not in PC iTunes folder**
.DS_Store and sentinel (icon for both is a blank sheet) are in the PC iTunes folder, but did not copy to iTunes folder on hard drive.
The day before you responded to my question, I read a support document (in Home Sharing section) that had instructions to import the playlist by copying iTunes Library.xml to external drive and importing it to iTunes. I imported it by going to iTunes, File, Library, import playlist. It worked, but again, no playcounts ratings.
I thought iTunes Library.xml file was simultaneously removed when I removed the iTunes Folder in the Mac music folder, but somehow, I did something to get it back in or didn't properly remove it. The .xml that's on my PC and in the ITunes folder on my external hard drive is iTunes Music Library.xml. iTunes Library.xml is also on the external drive as a separate file but not in the iTunes folder that's on hard drive. I did nothing to alter file names.

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!

Hidden files starting with colon not showing in finder--how to delete?

Was playing around with an AppleScript to generate vcards and initially didn't get the path name right. The result (oops) is that a whole batch of vcard files were written into the MacintoshHD-level directory.
The file names start with colons. I can't see them in the Finder, but I can see them in Terminal:
xxx-xxx-computer:/ xxxx$ ls
:Users:xxxx:Desktop:AddressBookVcards:xxxxx.vcf
:Users:xxxx:Desktop:AddressBookVcards:xxxxx2.vcf
(and so on, followed by the normal directory names you'd see in the Finder)
Is there any way to get this list of hidden file names in the finder so I can delete them easily with drag and drop? Any other suggestions? Thanks.
MacBook Pro 15"/2.16Ghz/2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hi RKNYC,
   This is a subtle issue. The path separator is the character that delimits directory names in the path. As Camelot said, the path separator is never a valid filename character. The complexity comes in the fact that OS X has two ways of specifying a path, each with a different path separator. The classic OS use a colon as a path separator but UNIX components use a forward slash as a path separator.
   Instead of eliminating both characters as valid filename characters, Apple made an interesting choice that really is the only way to eliminate just one character. If you put a forward slash in a filename in a carbon app, it will be allowed because carbon apps use classic paths internally so only a colon is disallowed. However, if you list the same file with a UNIX tool, you couldn't see a forward slash because that would be illegal. Instead, you see a colon in the place of the slash. There's an illegal character and the other one and if you put the other in a filename, it will change depending on context.
   What happened to you is almost certainly the opposite of my example above. AppleScript can handle both contexts but the syntax for UNIX paths is tricky. What you probably did was use a UNIX path in a classic context. AppleScript took you to mean that you wanted a file at the top level of the drive that has a very long filename with lots of slashes in it. That is, your slashes were taken as filename characters: the other character. Then when you listed it in a UNIX context, those slashes turned to colons.
   In order to get AppleScript to understand UNIX paths — to treat a forward slash as a delimiter — you have to specify the path as a POSIX path, like so:
Posix file "/var" as alias
That acts as a handle to a file, which you can create if it doesn't already exist. An alias doesn't have to exist while a file does.
   There's one thing I don't understand: why the files would be invisible. I hate that AppleShowAllFiles option. I've got a lot of UNIX apps that store their preference files as hidden files (filenames beginning with a period) at the top level of my home directory. I couldn't find a thing if I had to sift through all of that. However, your filenames don't begin with a period and I just checked; on my machine, filenames beginning with a colon are shown in the Finder — they just begin with a slash. (the Finder is a Carbon app)
Gary
~~~~
   An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.

Noticed my hard drive getting filled, didn't save 500 Gb of data on it. I made the observation that hidden files are been created on the Hd. I assumed they were unnecessary and deleted most of them. To my dismay am getting a kernel panic msg. what to do?

I noticed my hard drive getting filled, didn't save 500 Gb of data on it. I made the observation that hidden files are been created on the Hd. I assumed they were unnecessary and deleted most of them. To my dismay am getting a kernel panic message. How do i go about getting this fixed?

Depending on what directory or directories you were erasing from you've certainly erased important system files and perhaps important applications files as well. If you have been using TimeMachine to back your computer up you should reboot into recovery mode (restart and hold Command + R until you see the Apple icon) and perform a restore.
If you haven't, boot into recovery mode anyway and choose the install OS option. Keep your fingers crossed that the OS is the only thing you deleted and that this works. You may also find it necessary to reinstall some of your software.

Hidden file deletion

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