Surface Drive hidden files

The hard drive on the surface RT is full despite my best efforts to delete any large files. I then used the search function to search by file size and found there to be video files and lots of other types of files hidden on my C drive under the file directory
C:\Users\xxxxxxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Low\IE\6UOMD02X
I ran windows defender and that found nothing as usual as well as deleting all cache, history and temporary files in internet explorer however when I searched again these files remained. Each file also seems to be hidden as when I go back I can not find the
file name to click into. Obviously I could delete the files but I feel that won't solve much. I also tried to download other malware and virus software but the RT will not let me install these apps. Thanks for your help

The '._' files contain meta-data specific to the Mac. Contained therein are things like custom icons, the label color for the file, the file type, the file creator, etc.
The Mac only creates those files if the filesystem being written too doesn't natively handle Mac file and resource data. If you can mount the filesystem using AFP instead of NFS or SMB/CIFS, the problem will go away (and AFP also has the benefit of being faster). There's really no way to disable the creation of the '._' files outright.
There are four ways to address the issue:
1. Let your co-workers get over it. Any decent CIFS implementation will hide the '._' files so they won't see them. The files cause no harm, so it shouldn't matter.
2. Manually delete the '._' files. You can do this periodically, even write a script to do it and have it run automatically on a schedule. However, when you delete the files, be cognizant that you are throwing away some information. OS X is going to have to guess the file type, and you won't be able to use custom icons or icon label colors.
3. Use BlueHarvest ($13 download; 30-day free trial). This monitors file creation and deletes '._' just after they're written. You can set rules to delete '._' only for certain types of files too.
4. Use DAVE. DAVE preserves the file meta-data on Windows shares that support alternative data streams by saving the data in an ADS. It should work with most CIFS-type servers.
You might also ask your sysadmin if it's possible to add Mac File Services for Windows -- which lets you access Windows shares as native OS X AFP shares.

Similar Messages

Network Drive Hidden Files

When I modify files saved on network drives, a hidden file is created on the network drive that bothers my co-workers. I originally dealt with a .DS_Store file in every folder I accessed on the network drive. I researched and found the support topic related to this issue. I used the command:
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
There are no more .DS_Store files, but now, every time I modify something on the network drive, a hidden file appears for the modified file. For instance, I save a Word file Doc-1.doc and a ._Doc-1.doc hidden file is created. Also, if I move or copy a file to the network drive, the same thing (drag and drop x.pdf and ._x.pdf hidden folder.
The single .DS_Store file was bad enough, but now every file I access has a hidden file with it. Any commands to prevent this from happening?

The '._' files contain meta-data specific to the Mac. Contained therein are things like custom icons, the label color for the file, the file type, the file creator, etc.
The Mac only creates those files if the filesystem being written too doesn't natively handle Mac file and resource data. If you can mount the filesystem using AFP instead of NFS or SMB/CIFS, the problem will go away (and AFP also has the benefit of being faster). There's really no way to disable the creation of the '._' files outright.
There are four ways to address the issue:
1. Let your co-workers get over it. Any decent CIFS implementation will hide the '._' files so they won't see them. The files cause no harm, so it shouldn't matter.
2. Manually delete the '._' files. You can do this periodically, even write a script to do it and have it run automatically on a schedule. However, when you delete the files, be cognizant that you are throwing away some information. OS X is going to have to guess the file type, and you won't be able to use custom icons or icon label colors.
3. Use BlueHarvest ($13 download; 30-day free trial). This monitors file creation and deletes '._' just after they're written. You can set rules to delete '._' only for certain types of files too.
4. Use DAVE. DAVE preserves the file meta-data on Windows shares that support alternative data streams by saving the data in an ADS. It should work with most CIFS-type servers.
You might also ask your sysadmin if it's possible to add Mac File Services for Windows -- which lets you access Windows shares as native OS X AFP shares.

How do I find and free the hidden files on external drive?

I cannot see , or free, space on my external drive.
It is a Seagate Freeagent 500 GB disk. I am using 100GB for photos and music. Only 38 MB are reported free. How can I reclaim the rest of the space?
I had used in the past as Time machine backup. To create space I moved to trash the file Backups.backupd (as I now have another disk for Time Machine). I can't see this file in the Trash, and I can't see the space in Finder. How do I find / free the space?
The disk format is MAC OS Extended journaled. Disk utility reports no errors. I have run verify and fix, and also erase free space, with no result.
Thank you for your help.

Erase free space only wipes clean the 38 MBs that are already free. Click here to see hidden files.
However, I'd just make a copy of the 100 GBs in use, and then complely wipe the disk.
Don't try to delete the Backups.backupd folder by Finder. It's not a good idea to mix Finder and TM.

I have a 2nd gen Mac book air with Lion. The hard disk has filled up even though i keep my data , music etc on hard drive . I used disk inspector to find where problem was and it is 20GB in the hidden files under the user directory can i resolve this ?

I have a 2nd Gen MAc book Air with Lion . The 60GB hard disc has quickly filled up despite me keeping most of my data on a portable hard drive . I used disk inspector to locate the problem but found that it was was in 20 GB of hidden files in my user directory . Is this correct and is there anything i can do about it ? Using disk inspector you can not see individual hudden diretories or files. I did unhide them but there is a mass of diretories etc and so no way i could see if this is one or multiple files using the space. Library System and Applications are at 4 3 and 3 GB respectvely. The data I actually keep on there is 9GB Thanks for any help

I think the problem is Quick Time Player. I am using OS 10.6.8 by the way.
I tried it out again.
I had about 26 GB of space before I played an .avi video.
After the movie started to play (it was slow to load), I got a warning message that my startup disk was full. I opened Disk Utility and it told me I had no space left (about 20 MB or something like that was left).
I watched to the end of the movie.
Then I quit Quicktime Player.
And I shut down the computer.
I turned on the computer and checked Disk Utility. I have about 26 GB of space.
I think for some reason Quicktime Player uses up a lot of the disk space when it runs movies that are problematic. This movie I was watching did not open with vlc.
I normally use vlc to watch movies.
Probably it doesn't use up this much space when the movie is OK.
I think there's a problem with this particular movie. It is about 50 MB so it's not that big a file. I watch .smi subtitles with it. The Quicktime Player automatically loads the subtitle file in this case because the subtitle file has the same name as the movie file.
I watched about 10 movie files from the same series that I downloaded together and did not have any problem watching them. I watched them on vlc. But this latest movie had problems I think (as I repeat). It did not load on vlc even though I waited for a minute, and normally movies load instantly on vlc.
So I think that movie file caused problems. It made QT player use up a lot of hard disk space.
I had better avoid watching that movie in the future. I don't want it to wreck my hard drive.
So to sum up, everything is back to normal. I have the hard disk space that I should have. However, I am scared of damaging my hard drive due to shonky movie files that eat up all the space when they are played using QT player, and so I will not watch those files in the future, as I do not know why the files do that.

Hard drive is a hidden file

my hard drive some how has become a hidden file. Its not showing up anywhere except for disc utility, and when I show all files with the terminal it shows up. How can I make it unhidden?

This problem has become so common I wrote an article about it and the easiest solutions:
http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html
The Applescript given works fine and is easy. The Terminal solution works and is easy if you have Developer stuff installed.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

How to see hidden files on old OS X disc drive

I installed a new SSD in my MBP and installed Mavericks. I have my old OS drive in an external dock and I am having problems seeing hidden files. Solutions?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
To see hidden files in Finder, open Terminal and type:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
Then, access to the old disk and you will be able to access to the hidden files

Export to thumb drive and remove hidden files for Pandigital frame

I have a Pandigital photoframe. I find from searching online that there is zero support for Mac users. The frame mounts in the finder then disappears after a short while. Searching the web, I have found (supposedly) that one must export the files from iPhoto to an MS/DOS formatted thumb drive. After that, hidden files written by the Mac on the thumb drive must be removed using Terminal. I'm not sure if the directions that I found at these sites are correct or might not be complete. I am a novice at Terminal so maybe something is not clear to me on these sites. Can anyone help with transfer from iPhoto to a Pandigital frame? The sites are:
http://www.studiolighting.net/pandigital-frames-tout-128mb-internal-memory/
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1276407

This search
http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=resource+fork&os=mac
has links to many other apps that will remove the resource fork from these files. I don't mean to be obtuse but I don't often have reason to use these apps and so I'm slow to give specific assistance on them. You are best to read the Help on these apps or contact their support.
Regards
TD

My iBook doesn't show the hidden files on my pen drive

Hi there,
I have a 1 Gb Kingston pen drive to transfer files from/to my work PC (which is a Windows PC).
The pen drive works seamlessly on the Windows PC. But when using it on Mac iBook G4 it always leaves some "markers" of the files used like "._trash". These are not very big, but I wonder:
1) Why does Mac create those apparently useless files?
2) Why can I only see those apparently useless files on Windows PCs but not on Mac? (i.e. if I didn't have to regularly use a Windows PC my pen drive would get filled up with useless information without me even knowing)
3) Why can I add or alter files from Mac to pen drive, but I cannot simply delete files on the pen drive using my Mac (again, I need to retort to my olde Windows PC to do such a "basic" operation).
I always press the eject button before unplugging my pen drive.
I always find annoying that external devices that work just fine and as expected on Windows PCs create endless problems and issues when connected to Mac (have similar issues with my Sony digital camera).
Thank you for your help and time
Marco

Hello Soave
Hope to answer some Qs.
1) The files aren't useless to OS X. Please follow this link to read more.
2) Mac OS X is based around Unix. In Unix, the convention to hide files is to prefix a full-stop. Windows does not recognise this as a hidden file and hence will simply show them with the preceding full-stop.
3) I can't answer this one as I can see no reason why you should be allowed to alter them but not delete them. It's obvious you have write access to them. I use a thumb drive on my Mac and I have no such problems.
I haven't personally used it, but this program might be of use to you.
James

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.

500 GB Junk Files on Boot Hard Drive Hidden and can't access

Can someone tell me how to find and trash these hidden files. I tried third party software and they don't show up nor do they show up on a spotlight search including invisible files . I have a 2T Hard drive and it is filled up with about 500GB of hidden files having roughly the following name
"Volumes/Mirrors (45) From My Passport/Nikon Probably All Dups From My Passport on 120823/120612 Temporary hold for transferred from #02/Autosave Vault/Lesson 12 Project/Lesson 12 Project_10-06-08_1730"
Above is a single line from ChronoSync. They, of course, are not the same name past "autosaveVault" and there are about 1700 of them. Every single one has is same up to "AutosaveVault". I found them by backing up the hard drive with ChronoSync and going into the log. Fortunately they were almost at the very end of the 24 plus hour backup. And, the first stuff that was backed up was actually known data and the discrepancy did not occur until the know data was virtually all backed up.
I have a disk drive labled Mirrors (45) that I erase but before that they seemed to exist on, but I really don't think it was 500GB. I don't know if I erased "Mirror (45)" by reoformatting or just trashing the files. I never have used the word autosave Vault either. I recognize the file names and folders beyond Autosave.
I have not been able to view, let alone delete these files on the boot drive which has a little over 1.5T of "data" thats shown as actually exisitng in the file command.
I am pretty certain this is related to the Mavericks upgrade but not positive. I do know I have another backup drive with mountain Lion that was last backedup about a week before what has been a huge diaster with Mavericks, and there may be less then 50GB "hidden" on it but its hard to tell.
The storage report from "about this Mac" is 40GB shy of 48GB show as free that is free space should be 88GB if you believe "about this Mac"

Get free OmniDiskSweeper and run as root. Open Terminal and copy/paste and hit return. Give your admin pword when requested, which won't appear as you type it in. Hit return again.
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
See also http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
Note, be very careful when running as root, since this will give you unfettered access to all critical system files.

How do I stop Mac creating files on Windows server creating hidden files?

I have my macbook connecting to a windows 2003 server share. Whenever I write a file, either by creating or editing and saving, it creates a hidden file too. I edit filename.doc then I'll also have ._filename.doc in that directory. It's distracting the windows users and causing me to become a little unpopular. How can I prevent those hidden files from being created?

This happens in part with some Mac files that contain both a resource and a data fork. Windows doesn't know how to handle these files and breaks them apart. Also, Mac OS creates certain hidden files used by the Finder that also get transferred but are no longer hidden on Windows because Windows does not recognize the "." preceding a filename as the Unix shorthand for "invisible."
There are a number of free utilities you will find at VersionTracker or MacUpdate that can prevent this and the hidden files from appearing on the Windows drive.
Zipping files before transfer will also prevent the problem from occurring.

How to remove my ex-company's server? Their IT set up hidden files to access computer anytime. I went thru all the Network

I worked for a company from my home. They had an IT company that would maintain ecverything thru the network and wirelessly.
I no longer work for the company but was able to keep the computer. Since I've left the company I have noticed they have accessed the computer. I have gone through all the steps to change the network, account settings, etc. But still - when I try to Update the Software I get an error message that I cannot access company.server. I don't want to access company.server. I want to wipe away them and their access to the computer. How can I find their hidden Network setup. I have all hidden files showing nd can't find it. Help. I want to use this computer but can't till I get those jerks' nose out! Thanks, Carole

I was afraid you were going to say that.
My desktop is 4-5 years old.
I've been messing with backing up programs onto my 200GB backup drive all evening.
I'm glad I only did work stuff on that computer and very little personal stuff.
I'll go check my disks, but they are very old. I'll have a ton of software updating on all the applications.
Would it work if I -
1st: boot-up from the original disc
2nd: Pull all files from the desktop computer onto my backup drive;
3rd: After I wipe out the computer just drag all the files and apps back upto the computer?
Or do I HAVE to reinstall all apps? Having old disks that will then need to be updated is not very fun.
Thanks, Carole

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?

Flash capacity and hidden files

I am about to order a new Mac Pro and am trying to work out whether to get 512 or 1TB flash storage
I have an 2007 MP, 4 drives in it but looking at the main drive and its content I cannot account for all of the used space.
The main (boot disk) shows 567GB used
Using Cmd + I on all the folders in the 1TB boot disk I get the following:-
So it appears that most of the unaccounted for space (136 GB of 146GB) is sitting in the Users folders.
So my questions is what would the "hidden" files be and would those reside on the flash drive in a new Macpro
Assuming I will put all of the Document files etc onto the Pegasus storage and that I would have the same apps on board, would it be safe to say to allow for
i.e. the 512GB should be sufficient !
Regards

Thanks form the reply DWB (Yosemete Sam !)
Would I be right in thinking that the User's directory would, in the case of the new Mac Pro, always reside on the flash drive?
So in my case above, providing I moved all User content (i.e. Documents, moves, desktop content,) to the Pegasus storage then I could expect to need 256 GB of storage and a 512GB flash storage should be sufficient to run all my apps etc?
Regards

Recovery from crashed drive - PSe3 files with tag info?

Hi,
I've had a crashed hard drive which I cannot now boot from. So without being able to reboot, I can't start PSE3 and view the photos and the tags in the organiser.
I do have one back up but it was done some time ago and, since then, I've added quite a few more pix. (Clearly I need to back up more frequently, but that's for the future. At the moment, I'd just like to get back any of the tags so painstakingly put in over the last couple of months.)
I can view the partition that carried the OS (WinXP sp 2) and would like, if possible, to salvage the tag files from the PSe3 installation. (The photos themselves I've been able to copy out of the damaged hard drive.)
- Can anyone direct me to the folder or file in the original PSE3 installation that would contain the tag information for the photos logged in the Organiser?
- Also, is it as simple as reinstalling the programme and then copying this file/folder into the new root folder to 'get back' all the tag info?
Any help (or alternative suggestions) would be welcome.

>- Can anyone direct me to the folder or file in the original PSE3 installation that would contain the tag information for the photos logged in the Organiser?
XP -- C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Catalogs
The catalog file itself is a .psa file.
The default catalog name is My Catalog.psa
Also look at
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Catalog Folders
Under that structure there will be a subfolder with the name of your catalog (the default being "My Catalog" without the quotes). It contains those thumbnails that you see in the Photo Well of the PSE Organizer plus other control files.
Note that you must set the "Folder Options" to view Hidden Files in order to see these folder structures: this can be done either from Control Panel or from the Tools menu of Windows Explorer.
>- Also, is it as simple as reinstalling the programme and then copying this file/folder into the new root folder to 'get back' all the tag info?
Probably yes. People have done this over the years since PS Elements version 3 was released.
1 -- I woud first try copying over the .psa file AND its associated folder under "Catalog Folders".
2 -- Copying over the Catalog Folders subfoder does have more risk of failing because of configuration differences. So if number 1 does not work, then I would delete the folder under Catalog Folders on your new drive - then try again with just the copied over .psa file placed in that Catalogs folder. Wtih this approach you will have the tags but you will need to recreate the thumbnails displayed in the Photowell of the PSE Organzer.
Note that having correct pointers to the photos from the Catalog does depend on having the same Windows drive letter assigned to the disk containing the photo files: if you only have a C drive then that should be OK (otherwise you do need to verify drive letter assignments).

Surface Drive hidden files

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