Folders mysteriously appear in my Library

[Halcyon]

I was looking into my Preference folder (inside the Library folder) and noticed that every now and then some mysterious folders appear in there. These empty folders are labeled (named) with weird characters (like - ùêê}i®ø??††{Ò|ê}k) .

First couple of times I got rid of them by sending them to the trash, but I don't know if that was the correct procedure to get rid of them. I've runned an antuvirus and my entire computer is virus free.

Any ideas what it can be?

TIA

Halcyon

 

[EricNau]

If they're empty there probably isn't any harm in deleting them, but I wouldn't even bother; they aren't hurting anything.


...And of course you don't have any viruses, your running OS X.

 

[Halcyon]

Thanks...like you said, if they don't hurt, don't bother with it

I'll periodically check and see how many of them pile up...if too many I'll delete them. Maybe they are caused by some corrupted application, of wich I have two: Powerpoint, that will simply not run, and Entourage, that sometimes acts weird and I have to close it and open it again...no biggy.

Thanks.

Halcyon

 

[mad jew]

If you ever do feel like deleting them, drag them to the Trash but avoid Emptying The Trash for a while. This way the system loses contact with the folders but you can still get them back relatively easily. It's a good way of checking if a file or folder is necessary.

Having said that, almost everything in the Preferences folder can be deleted without doing any major harm. The worst that'll happen is you'll lose some customised settings which might suck for a little while.

 

[jsw]

If you ever do feel like deleting them, drag them to the Trash but avoid Emptying The Trash for a while.

Or right/control click on them and create an archive of the files, then delete the original files (not the archived versions, obviously) and empty the trash. That way, any links which might survive a trip to the Trash (some can) would be broken, so, if everything still works fine, you'll know the files weren't needed. And, if something breaks, just double-click on the appropriate archived files, and move the then-unarchived files back to their original location.

 

[beatsme]

I was looking into my Preference folder (inside the Library folder) and noticed that every now and then some mysterious folders appear in there. These empty folders are labeled (named) with weird characters (like - ùêê}i®ø??††{Ò|ê}k) .

First couple of times I got rid of them by sending them to the trash, but I don't know if that was the correct procedure to get rid of them. I've runned an antuvirus and my entire computer is virus free.

Any ideas what it can be?

TIA

Halcyon

They're temp files, and ordinarily you wouldn't see them. If you're running anti-virus software, that's probably what's causing them to remain visible. NAV is notorious for saving visible temp files...

if you're not running NAV, don't worry. They're just temp files.

 

[Halcyon]

That's exactly what I did...put them in the trash and waited a couple of days before deleting them. Once deleted nothing started acting weird so I guess they are not needed at all.

As of now, knowing everything is safe, I'm just curious as to the nature/procedence of them

Thanks everybody.

Halcyon