CleverFiles: What is it ?

[Robert4]

Hi,

Have been trying to install a program, but have given up.
Not really important. Deleted everything having to do with it on my desktop, where, i thought, all of it resided.

But I found "remnants" or something having to do with it, in "cleverfiles"

Zillions of entries. Used Easy Find to find them; a great free FIND program by the way.

Anyway, I was able to see them all in the Finder, after telling the Finder to make "Hidden" visible. Dozens of Folders, with "zillions of entries in them having to do with the program I thought I deleted (via what was showing from it on the desktop)

Just curious:

What is cleverfiles ?
Apple install it, or some third party ?
Virus ?

Or,...?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[cmaier]

Hi,

Have been trying to install a program, but have given up.
Not really important. Deleted everything having to do with it on my desktop, where, i thought, all of it resided.

But I found "remnants" or something having to do with it, in "cleverfiles"

Zillions of entries. Used Easy Find to find them; a great free FIND program by the way.

Anyway, I was able to see them all in the Finder, after telling the Finder to make "Hidden" visible. Dozens of Folders, with "zillions of entries in them having to do with the program I thought I deleted (via what was showing from it on the desktop)

Just curious:

What is cleverfiles ?
Apple install it, or some third party ?
Virus ?

Or,...?

Thanks,
Bob

Do you have (or did you have) the app “disk drill” installed? If so, cleverfiles directory is from that app.

 

[Robert4]

Hi,

Thanks for information.

Yes, it was Disk Drill.
Funny, but I sure don't remember installing it, but maybe ?

Is this a program worth having/using ? Not familiar with it at all.

What value is it if it (only) backs up to created files on the Mac, and not
someplace else/safe ?

I do my Mac backups now to an external HD via Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC).

Regards, and thanks again,
Bob

 

[tuckerdogavl]

I just found these because I used the "About this Mac" > Storage > Manage ... I would like to access some of the mp4 that have strings out about 25 letters and numbers. I have no idea why they are in my system>etc etc. I cannot see them using the Finder. I'm assuming they are hidden, but I don't recall the secret in seeing hidden files. Can someone help me figure this out?

I dragged a couple to my desktop. I see them, but when I click nothing happens. I'm now using BigSur where apparently Apple has decided that APPLETV is the only way to view your own files (like they screwed up iTunes). These aren't movies, tv shows, purchased, rented, shared... they are things I have created using iMovie (And can't WAIT to use iMovie now in Big Sur and see where that takes me.

So, what's going on here? There is quite a chunk of storage space being used and I can't apparently do anything that Big Sur suggest I do. Delete causes spins. Rename isn't allowed. Get info just tells me the info.

 

[DeltaMac]

If those are some sort of video (an MP4 is a video format), you should be able to view the files by clicking once on the file to select it, then press your space bar. You will either get a viewer window, running the video, or just a generic window showing the name of the file, and minimal info (Works exactly like that, even in Monterey, so you should see something in Bug Sur, too, assuming that the files are actually video files.
Press space again to toggle out of that window.

You can see hidden files after pressing the keyboard shortcut Shift-Cmd-. (the . is a period)
When you are done, toggle invisibility again with the same Shift-Cmd-.
If the system won't allow you to delete those files, boot to safe mode, then try deleting the files.
If THAT doesn't work, boot to your recovery system, where you can disable SIP. Restart, and again try to delete those files.
You should be successful with one of those steps. (I suggest that you re-enable SIP when you are done, if you needed to disable SIP to remove those files)

 

[Fishrrman]

Hmmm....

Disk Drill is a data-recovery app, if I recall.
What follows is speculation on my part.

I'm wondering if the OP tried to run Disk Drill. If he did, DD would start to "scan" the drive, attempting to "recover" files on it.

As part of the file recovery process, DD may have started to "build" a recovered files archive, saving data to [what would normally be] "an external scratch drive".

Instead of saving to an actual separate drive, perhaps DD started to "recover" data to the OP's internal drive?

What is this "cleverfiles" you refer to?
Is it a folder named "cleverfiles"?
Is it an app?
You're not being clear.

I'm thinking that if all this unwanted stuff is IN a folder named "cleverfiles" (you will have to do a CAREFUL examination to ascertain this), you could probably delete the entire folder and be done with it.
But... do so at your own risk.

If you already have a recent CCC cloned backup, then you should be covered.

 

[tuckerdogavl]

I'm revisiting this because I'm about to transfer from my 1TB Fusion Mac mini to a new M2, and I came across this folder .cleverfiles. I'd rather delete now if possible vs. the system getting all fouled for some reason (as I am going down to a smaller HD and need to make the files transfer as clean as possible)

Did we ever get a definitive answer as to what this folder is? And, I too, do not recall ever using something called Disk Drill.

PS I just recalled however that I had to take my computer in for a recovery two years ago when I upgraded from Big Sur to Monterey. It crashed in the process and I had to get pro help to get the system back. I wonder if they used this to do that? I'm going to call and see if I can get an answer... operators standing by ...

 

[DeltaMac]

Anything in a "cleverfiles" folder should be produced by Disk Drill file recovery software.
You should then notice that all the files in the folder were created at about the date of the file recovery that you had a couple of years ago.
bottom line: you should be safe to simply delete that folder, and all of its contents.