Double Files

[mike505]

The iMac OS is Yosemite.

I have 500 mp3 files on an external drive (ExFat).
If I move the drive to a windows machine, I see 500 files in Explorer.

I then move the drive back to the iMac and PLAY file XYZ.mp3
The iMac still shows 500 files in Finder.
If I turn on hidden files the Mac still shows 500 mp3s

I then move the drive back to the windows machine and it shows 501 mp3 files.
The extra file is the one that I played on the Mac and the file name is ._XYZ.mp3 and the size if 4KB

It's an annoyance because every so often, I copy the music library to a USB drive for the car. The cars sees those extra files as valid mp3 files and wants to play then so unless I'm in shuffle mode, it plays every song twice.

I'm not imagining this.
Aside from using a windows machine and deleting the extra files every time I create an export for the car, is there any way to eliminate them on the Mac or prevent them from getting created in the first place.

 

[chown33]

See here:
http://superuser.com/questions/306108/disable-creation-of-appledouble-files-on-mac-os-x

And here:
https://developer.apple.com/legacy/...rwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/dot_clean.1.html

The superuser.com article refers to a mounted SMB volume, but the same principle will apply to any external drive.

If you can't figure out the exact command-line, ask again.

If you try something that doesn't seem to work, post the exact command-line you used and the complete output (copy and paste it from the Terminal window into a post).


If you get something to work, you can put the command-line into a Run Shell Script action in an Automator workflow. Then you can just double-click it to clean the USB drive, rather than pasting a line into a Terminal window.

 

[grahamperrin]

prevent them from getting created

NTFS instead of ExFAT might do it. I don't know whether the free open source driver for NTFS will work with Yosemite.

Take care with dot_clean. If used inappropriately it will lead to loss of data or metadata.