Comments on: .Trashes, .fseventsd, and .Spotlight-V100

By: David Evans

David Evans — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:37:59 +0000

All very technical and good but I use an iMac for day to day computing and a Nikon D70 as a camera. I download the jpeg files to the Apple but find that the .fsevetsd, .trashes and ._.trashes files then render the compact flash useless when reinserted in the Nikon. I end up booting up an old Windows laptop to reformat the card before use - reformatting in the camera does not work and assume reformatting in the Mac would still leave these files behind - lost half a dozen photos yesterday because of this!
Suggestions of alternative methods of overcoming this welcome.

By: Eli Schwartz

Eli Schwartz — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:20:28 +0000

I used my flashdrive in a mac and now i have a ton of these files, which even though they are .whatever my windows computer keeps showing me them and clogging up my view. my linux computer has the courtesy to consider it a hidden folder.

I say mac should die horribly for excessive cruelties, and windows is incompetent. Either way, they’re both screwing us all up.

By: Jess H. Brewer

Jess H. Brewer — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:53:55 +0000

Thank you for this (the original) explanation and resolution. One thing I didn’t see mentioned is the amount of HD space used up by .Spotlight-V100 files if one doesn’t realize they are storing detailed information about every file on the computer. I noticed that the free space on my HD was leaking away at a rate of several GB a day and became alarmed (understandably, I think) until I found that this was due to the creation of monster .Spotlight-V100 files. Since I prefer to use familiar, simple tools like “locate” to find files by name (and after 50 years of programming experience I have developed the habit of giving files informative names), I have little use for Spotlight in the first place.

Those who believe Apple would *never* install spyware to harvest useful information from those incredibly detailed analyses of all files on a system must truly have swallowed the Kool-Aid. Like all corporations, Apple makes every decision based on the “bottom line”. The only reason they would pass up this goldmine would be fear of expensive litigation if they get caught. Watch for new legislation authorizing them to spy on you “to protect the children”.

By: EL

EL — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 08:11:21 +0000

Thank you so much for this blog post. It was certainly beginning to annoy me heaps (and I also think the extra hidden dot files were the reason why the SD card got corrupted data/format and required a total wipe via the camera’s built-in SD card formatter).

By: Shawn Garbett

Shawn Garbett — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:47:42 +0000

Nice try on Godwin’s Law. Unfortunately, the law explicitly states that it is not invoked when one uses the term ‘nazi’ to invoke it.

Also, it is shameful because Apple made an assumption that it can just write what it wants to a drive I may be just using to store files. Like 10TB of files. Now it’s full of 230,000 files of this garbage.

The other mystery is why some file dates get changed. I’ve had to resort to mounting these volumes read-only from my desktop mac till I can trust mac to play nice. Especially when the file date is a critical piece of information I’m trying to record.

By: jzomer

jzomer — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:00:16 +0000

Very useful information. And without entering the flame wars, I merely would have hoped for Apple to create the option to switch it of if needed. I need it switched off sometimes, when creating a lot of sticks to give away.

For the rest: I think it is time to call in Godwins Law: nazi, nazi, nazi.

By: essexhill

essexhill — Mon, 23 May 2011 22:47:31 +0000

[Ed’s paraphrase of this comment: “I do not agree with the arguments of the person who cited 45 years of experience in engineering.”]

By: Tyler

Tyler — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:09:46 +0000

Does anybody else think it is funny how touchy some people get when people talk smack about the operating system they use?

By: Old Man

Old Man — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 20:37:17 +0000

“In any disagreement between two or more parties, the truth is always in between them.” And now finally having become intelligent in the eyes of my then 16.5 year old, I will add the following.

The lock switch on SD cards DOES NOT LOCK THE DATA. SD card drive hardware IS NOT REQUIRED to respect this switch’s setting.

And yes, engineers do design according to their personal philosophies. That’s how we get nightmares and a very few fantastic systems. I would submit that Windows, Mac OS (pre-UNIX), and UNIX have all caused nightmares for many. It’s also why DOS is still used for data forensics natively. All other OSes require drive locking hardware between the host and drive.

After some 45 years in engineering, building stuff that several billion people have now used, I’ve learned that Occam’s Razor (see William of Okham) applies in every case. No system should perform any function without necessity. In this case Mac OS should not leave trash behind on a non-Mac file system. If Mac OS really needs additional files or directories, then it should put them on its own system disk. And note that garbage collection on the flash drive itself is not viable, as it requires user cooperation to not rip the drive out before clean-up occurs.

Finally Apple is just as much a pirate as any other in Silicon Valley (my home), Redmond, or anywhere else. The many people who don’t buy Apple products, do so because Apple does not make them happy as customers. Steve Jobs is more a tyrant than Bill Gates ever was, and altruism is not a part of Apple any more than it is at any other corporation. Pandering to incompentent users brings in more dollars, and the IT support industry, one as large as the hardware/software development sector itself, sees sees this too. Not cynicism, this is just reality. As George Bernard Shaw wrote: “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it”.

By: Hostile Fork

Hostile Fork — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:29:32 +0000

@Computer Engineering Student (emphasis mine)

Regarding ignorance, there’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain I’d like to share:

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”