How do I find and remove hidden files

For some reason, after the recent install of SL my 1TB drive is extremely bloated. I have deleted or moved just about everything possible from the disk (excluding system files and applications) and it still shows that I only have 94.08 GB of space available.
Is there a good piece of software out there that will help me to find out if there are several hidden files and remove what is unnecessary?

Wow ... that was enlightening. I discovered that somehow there is a hidden folder on the 1TB drive entitled "volumes" and within that folder is a subfolder entitled "Mega Drive" (my self-titled name for the 1TB boot drive), which is an exact duplicate of my previous hard drive.
A little more about how I got here. I had to computer in to the Apple Store, after upgrading to SL, for what I initially though was a hardware issue. The Genius felt it was software, did an erase and install. When I got the macing back I tried to us Migration Assistant to copy files from my Time Machine drive, it took all night so I wasn't awake when it finished. I suspect that is where this folder came from, as the next day I could not find the information on my computer, so I started manually moving the files from that drive.
The bottom line is this ... is it safe to remove trash this entire folder?

Similar Messages

How can one find and remove hidden tracking software on an iphone

How can one find and remove hidden tracking software on an iphone

When folks did not know that it was there, they assume that it is hidden. Even the EU and the US congress got all up in arms about it.

How do I see and remove hidden files?

I copied some .jpg files to an SD card to pop into the SD card slot on my new Panasonic plasma tv.
When I setup a slide show every other file says "cannot read file 01" . All the pictures are there but there are these hidden files ( I Assume) every other one. There seems to be one of these extra hidden files for each picture file.
It's really annoying watching a slide show this way.
The files don't show in a finder window.
Is there a way to see these files and delete them so they won't show in my slideshow?
Thanks for any info or help you can provide.
Len in NC

Are you copying these files from the Mac to a PC-formatted SD card? If so the invisible files to which you refer are the result of filesystem incompatibilities. The structure of a Mac file results in the file's resource fork being stripped off and saved as a separate file on the PC-formatted disk.
There are utilities that can "clean" files for use on PCs:
GrimReaperCM
Remove MacOS Junk
BlueHarvest
WinFSCleanser
Look for them at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

How can i see and cancel hidden files on a external HD?

How can I see and cancel hidden files on a external HD with macbook pro and Lion?

Use this AppleScript, saved as an application to toggle hidden files/folders on and off:
if (do shell script "defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles") is equal to "0" then
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1"
else
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 0"
end if
do shell script "killall Finder"

Hi , how do i find and remove duplicate videos and photos on my ipad2 , please help

Hello , i have an apple ipad 2 , and iphone 4s and 5s . I have transferred all videos and photos on both these phones to the ipad to make space on my iphones. I have no doubt that there is now multiple duplicates on my ipad . How can i find and remove these. Please help should you know !

i imported all the files in my sd card to my mac and then i did format the card, it says 160kb is used up.
I also did find files in the trash when i connected the camera to the macbook and deleted them all, there is nothing left in the camera or the trash and it still says 160kb used :/

How do I find and locate duplicate files?

What is the process to find and remove duplicate files. The tab is grayed out. I am using version 13 and have over 1000 files and many of them are duplicates

In unix you can use a combination of ls and diff.
Unfortunately Apple is notorious for creating crippleware, so they have only provided this function in iPhoto and maybe iTunes. There is no easy Finder solution, such as would make sense as part of Smart Folders!
Stupid Apple

How do I find and remove duplicates on the 11.2 itunes?

How do I find and remove duplicates on the 11.2 itunes?

duplicate annihaitor
But often duplicates are a symptom and you really need to address the cause - more information is needed to help out with that
LN

How can I find and remove duplicate photos from my computer?

How can I find and remove duplicate photos from my computer?

Terence,
Yes, the duplicates appear in the iPhoto window. I have folders with same name occuring two or even three times sometimes with exactly the same set of photos (ie photos with the same ID) and sometimes with a limited set of photos. Other folders appear only once.
I normally take my MacBook with me if I'm shooting a lot of photos, such as on holiday, and then want to transfer them to my iMac when i get home. Other times I transfer the camera's memory stick directly to my iMac.
I have great difficulty transferring the photos from my MacBook to my iMac. I don't want to store my photos on my iDisk due to the length of time it takes to upload them.
Thanks again.
Simon

How can I identify and remove duplicate file (audio & photo)

How can I identify and remove duplicate file (audio & photo)? I have quite a few libraries created as backup files.

Terence,
Yes, the duplicates appear in the iPhoto window. I have folders with same name occuring two or even three times sometimes with exactly the same set of photos (ie photos with the same ID) and sometimes with a limited set of photos. Other folders appear only once.
I normally take my MacBook with me if I'm shooting a lot of photos, such as on holiday, and then want to transfer them to my iMac when i get home. Other times I transfer the camera's memory stick directly to my iMac.
I have great difficulty transferring the photos from my MacBook to my iMac. I don't want to store my photos on my iDisk due to the length of time it takes to upload them.
Thanks again.
Simon

Loaded OfficeforMac2011 on OS10.5.8; software won't launch because of font problem. How do I find and remove offending fonts?

Loaded OfficeforMac2011 on OS10.5.8; software won't launch because of font problem. How do I find and remove offending fonts?

HT2905 how do i find and remove duplicate songs in itunes 11.1.3?

i transferred my itunes to a new computer today, and somehow half of my library was duplicated. no i cant seem to find a way to get rid of the duplicates without selecting them one at a time. any ideas?

Apple's official advice on duplicates is here... HT2905: How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library. It is a manual process and the article fails to explain some of the potential pitfalls.
Use Shift > View > Show Exact Duplicate Items to display duplicates as this is normally a more useful selection. You need to manually select all but one of each group to remove. Sorting the list by Date Added may make it easier to select the appropriate tracks, however this works best when performed immediately after the dupes have been created. If you have multiple entries in iTunes connected to the same file on the hard drive then don't send to the recycle bin.
Use my DeDuper script if you're not sure, don't want to do it by hand, or want to preserve ratings, play counts and playlist membership. See this thread for background and please take note of the warning to backup your library before deduping.
(If you don't see the menu bar press ALT to show it temporarily or CTRL+B to keep it displayed)
Alternativey see this migrate iTunes library post, you may want to revisit the transfer method.
tt2

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

How can I find and remove duplicate photos in iPhoto?

What is the best way to find and remove duplicate photos in iPhoto?

Are you seeing these duplicates in iPhoto or via the Finder? If it's in the iPhoto window then you can use one of these applications to identify and remove duplicate photos from an iPhoto Library:
iPhoto Library Manager - $29.95
Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto - free
Duplicate Annihilator - $7.95 - only app able to detect duplicate thumbnail files or faces files when one library has been imported into another with iPhoto 8 and earlier.
PhotoSweeper - $9.95 - This app can search by comparing the image's bitmaps or histograms thus finding duplicates with different file names and dates.
I also prefer iPLM as it is more than just a dup finder. It's a the most versatile iPhoto utility available.
OT

How can I find and remove viruses from my mac

I fear that I might have a virus on my beloved macbook pro. i message was spassing out and not sending my messages, my folders continue to dissapear from my desktop causing me to restart finder (not a big deal just annoying) and some other out-of-place things are happening. I don't like credit cards so i can't buy any intvirus software so I was curious to know if there is a way to search for, find, and remove this potential virus on my own.

Apple provides and updates malware protection as part of the operating system functionality. There is no application you need to run. In using Macs in the corporate world and privately over the last 20+ years, the only malware that got into a Mac came from a shared MS Word document. That was in 1994.
Everytime that I chose to run a commercial or opensource anti-virus tool, a full sweep showed no infections.
There may be other systemic issues with your Mac that are the root cause for what you describe. As a baseline, I would do the following:
Run /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. On your boot disk, choose First Aid, and verify/repair permissions.
Reboot your Mac. Immediately press and hold the shift key until a login screen appears. Enter your login name, your password, and before continuing, press and hold the shift key again, until your desktop reappears.
Reboot normally.
What effect do the above have on the problems you mentioned?

How to find and remove corrupted files?

Hi,
Can anyone give me some direction in locating and removing files that have been corrupted? I am trying to back up my system for the first time on time machine, and keep getting an error message. I visited an Apple store today for support and had them reformat my external drive. I am able to start the backup, but it quits and gives me an error message.
Thanks!

fatchay wrote:
my HD needs to be repaired and that I have an invalid directory count. Is this why I can't backup?
Run Repair Disk: Boot from install disc (insert disc>restart>immediately hold down c key and keep holding it until you see “Preparing Installation”)>at first screen select the language and click Continue> click on the Utilities Menu in the menu bar>open Disk Utility>select your HD in the panel on the left side>click Repair Disk at bottom of main window. Run this at least twice, and keep running it until it says “appears ok” twice in a row. If that doesn’t happen, you may need a stronger utility such as DiskWarrior or if the directory is damaged beyond repair, you may need to reinstall the OS, or you may have a damaged HD (repair utilities can only repair the directory structure, not the HD itself).

How do I find and remove hidden files

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for