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Author Topic: What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?  (Read 6231 times)

Offline kbeartx

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« on: April 27, 2003, 03:19:00 PM »
I find these all over the place.

Are these things that OS X creates / uses?

Or some Sherlock artifacts?

Do I need them, can I delete them?

I run in OS 9.1 almost all the time, but I have 10.1.5 installed on a separate partition and boot into it periodically (maybe once a week?) for a little while.  

FWIW, I have had a recurring problem for quite awhile with system crashes when performing larger Finder copies (greater than 300 MB or so) and I discovered (by accident) that the crashes do not occur if I do the copying while booted in X, so now, when I need / want to copy a large chunk of data, I first boot into X, copy the files, then return to my 'normal' 9.1 environment.  I read a post somewhere (might have been MacFixIt or another Mac BBS) from someone with a similar prob and we both have G3s with zif upgraded processors...?

TIA,

- kbeartx
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Offline csonni

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2003, 03:29:00 PM »
kbeartx, I was wondering the same thing.  Whenever i burn a CD, there are, I believe, 2 desktop files included.  I saw this little program available here the other day:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo...fo/macosx/18665

I'm not sure how to use this program to delete the ds_store files (befoe or after burning???).  Ideas, anyone?
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Offline kbeartx

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2003, 03:38:00 PM »
So they ARE an OS X thing!

Can I delete 'em manually without doing any harm when I find 'em in places where they 'bother' me?

 - kbeartx
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Offline Spartacus

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2003, 03:53:00 PM »
Quite annoying indeed.
Whenever you upload an entire folder to your webserver via FTP client you'll have a .DSstore file on your server.
Considering that they have up to 11 kb it's really quite annoying.
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Offline daffy

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2003, 05:04:00 PM »
When I went to OS X, I was warned to never, never, delete the .DS Store files.

They are created by OS X & are vital to the system.

A couple of years ago, when many of us were first going to X, several people in our MUG deleted them & wrecked their system & had to re-install, etc.
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Offline bil207

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2003, 05:42:00 PM »
.DS_Store files in OS X are where the Finder stores the window settings for that particular folder.
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Offline Dreambird

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2003, 07:05:00 PM »
I've seen these asked about before... sorry I dunno if they're OK to get rid of, I have the feeling they'll just be regenerated.

I have several of them scattered all over my OS9.1 partition... they're invisible and I don't even "have" OS 10...
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Offline kps

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2003, 01:30:00 AM »
kbeartx, if these OS X Finder files are the result of the copying folders via X --then just delete them, OS 9 has no use for them...only OS X has a use for them. If you boot into OS X and re-open this folder (which is now on the OS 9 partition)...it'll just recreate the .DS_Store file anyway.

Dreambird you may do the same, you probably got them by copying from a CD made by OS X or downloaded some folder that was created in OS X.
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Offline Dreambird

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2003, 03:48:00 AM »
Ah... thanks kps for turning on the proverbial "light bulb"...
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Offline Diana

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #9 on: April 28, 2003, 08:01:00 AM »
aahhh...another lightbulb flickers,

I saw .DS_Store files scattered all over the TS webspace the other day. Figured they were part of the new board software. Since I didn't know what they were, I opened one and saw that it wasn't just text and left it alone.

Nice to know where they came from...  

see ya,
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Offline tacit

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #10 on: April 28, 2003, 09:10:00 AM »
"DS Store" stands for "Desktop Store." The .DS_Store file is created and used only by OS X. It serves many of the same functions as the Desktop file did in OS 9--it stores window views, icon positions, and so on.

It is not essential. If you delete this file, you won't harm your system. All that will happen is the next time you open that folder, the folder view will be set to the default view, and the icons will be set to default positions. When you change folder views or move any icons, the .DS_Store file will re-appear.

Normally, each folder accessed or used by OS X will contain one .DS_Store file. If you copy or move a folder, its .DS_Store file will go with it; that means if you FTP a folder or stuff a folder, its .DS_Store file will be FTPd or stuffed along with the rest of the folder.

I seem to recall seeing a program on VersionTracker designed to purge .DS_Store files, but I can't remember now what it was called.
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Offline kbeartx

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #11 on: April 28, 2003, 09:18:00 AM »
Thanks, kps and tacit, for your input!
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Offline kelly

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #12 on: April 28, 2003, 10:23:00 AM »
Looks like Cocktail 2.0 can delete them.  

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10909

Mac OS X Hidden Files & Directories

http://www.westwind.com/reference/OS-X/invisibles.html
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Offline Dreambird

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #13 on: April 28, 2003, 03:45:00 PM »
Thanks for the great explanations! One less mystery in life...  

They definately don't seem to get re-created in OS9.1... I've deleted a couple just to try it. I use "Invisible File Finder" to find and do whatever with these things.

When they're gone the windows to the programs show up as per usual for me, so I assume they were simply installed with the program at first.
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Offline taliesin

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What\'s up with the .DS_Store files?
« Reply #14 on: April 29, 2003, 04:23:00 PM »
I've not tried Cocktail, kelly, which looks interesting ... and free.  
But I've learned to use Jaguar Cache Cleaner with a little less of the "let's try getting rid of everything" approach I adopted the second time I ran it.
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