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Vaakuna

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 30, 2015
33
1
Nordic
Anyone have commands I can drop into terminal to universally hide .mp3 extensions? Nothing native to the last few OS-interfaces suffices. Just looking for a cleaner aesthetic.
 
Terminal would be problematic, I think. Hiding/showing the extension is recorded in the Spotlight index for each file and I do not think that there is a way to manipulate that safely.

What you could do is using a Spotlight search in Finder and restrict results to MP3 files by typing ‘kind:mp3’ (without quotes). Then you select all files when the search is done (command–A), then open an inspector window with command–option–I, then check the box for hiding the extension. This will apply it to all files.
 
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Terminal would be problematic, I think. Hiding/showing the extension is recorded in the Spotlight index for each file and I do not think that there is a way to manipulate that safely.

What you could do is using a Spotlight search in Finder and restrict results to MP3 files by typing ‘kind:mp3’ (without quotes). Then you select all files when the search is done (command–A), then open an inspector window with command–option–I, then check the box for hiding the extension. This will apply it to all files.
Cheers, K. Love the workaround in place of terminal. Can you also help me with the syntax to restrict Spotlight to look in only a specific folder at a time? I tried Spotlight with the catch-all by kind (MP3) and with 100+ GBs of data populating, the MBP seemed overwhelmed, so I'd like to parse the search results and manage the task in pieces.
 
Spotlight always looks in the folder you are currently viewing when you select the filter. You have to navigate to the folder you want before you start searching. It is not possible to narrow down to a specific location while searching.
Screen Shot 2016-11-22 at 20.11.43.png


You might be able to filter by something else by clicking on the + button below the search box.
 
Spotlight always looks in the folder you are currently viewing when you select the filter. You have to navigate to the folder you want before you start searching. It is not possible to narrow down to a specific location while searching.
View attachment 674143
Got it. I'll give this a go. And thanks for the upload.
 
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