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Preventing Creation of .DS_Store Files

Monday, Aug. 1 2005 | Author: jeremy

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I often use my PowerBook at work to access files on our network, which is all Windows. As a result, our shared files are littered with lots of .DS_Store files. These are usually hidden, but as most power users often do, we like to see all the files, including hidden ones.

Just found a way to prevent the creation of these files on network shares. It basically involves typing a command in Terminal and restarting your computer.

Open the Terminal.
Type:
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
Press Return.
Restart the computer.

That’s it. Now, go forth, and litter your network no more.

UPDATE: At the request of a reader, here is some information on what the .DS_Store file does:

Under Macintosh OSX .DS_Store holds the information which controls the way a folder will be opened; i.e., the shape and size of the window, the position of the window on the desktop and whether file, folder or icon view has been selected. If you were to delete the .DS_Store the folder would revert to the system default next time it is opened and a new blank .DS_Store would appear (invisibly).

Share and Enjoy

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7 Responses for "Preventing Creation of .DS_Store Files"

Cellounge Admin (Shane)

August 1st, 2005 at 11:24 pm
1

Maybe you could give us non-techies a background into what that file does. Is it really problem, or does it just take up space.
Drew

August 3rd, 2005 at 6:42 am
2

I have a non-Apple mp3 player that is badly confused by .DS_Store files. Is there a way to prevent their creation on a specific volume?

Thanks
Jeff

December 18th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
3

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Jean Frye

January 20th, 2007 at 9:44 am
4

In your instructions to rid a computer of the >DS_Store extension, you say to “Open the Terminal”. Forgive my novice status, but what exactly is “the Terminal”. I find thes files in Photoshop CS2 on my Mac. Could you please be more specific?
Ari

February 14th, 2007 at 3:49 am
5

@Jean

Terminal is in Applications->Utilities
chris

March 21st, 2007 at 12:46 am
6

thanks for taking the time to write this article. I started to use a mac, and i networked it with my web server. Recently I looked through the server while I was on my linux box, and found these .ds_store files all over my web site. LOL. I was worried it was a hacker at first as I was unknowing that these were mac files, and never see them from my mac. So this is just what i wanted, thanks
Tim Britt

December 14th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
7

I’m also hooked up to Linux box on my local netwrok that I use for a staging server and other things on the web.

I usually like my folders to be displayed the same anyhow, and don’t really have a need for these files.

You might want to combine the power of this setting with the MainMenu freeware app that allows you to search and destroy all .DS_store files on all volumes. Meaning you would never have to look at them again.

Additionally, you could setup an automator action to automatically destroy or quarantine any file that it found by that name, so you could clean up incoming stuff created by other macs.