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$MyDir

A

Architect4122

macrumors regular
Original poster
I just noticed this folder inside my HD (hasn't been there before). The other folders are the ones I'm used to, Applications, Library, System, Users, and User Guides.

$MyDir is new to me...theres nothing even in it as far as I can tell.

Any help? Can I delete it safely?

Thanks
 
Update

I upgraded to Leopard (forgot to add that)

Friend just bought a MBP today, he has Leopard, and the folder I'm talking about is not there.

After asking him if he had the folder, and him telling me he didn't I proceeded to drop the $MyDir folder into the trash....then it asked me for my password to delete it...thus I now think its important.

Any ideas?
 
Office?

I'm curious... When you upgraded to Leopard, did you do a clean install? If you didn't, did you perhaps upgrade Microsoft Office 2K4 to obtain Leopard compatability?

I also have the mysterious folder which showed up, and I suspect it was a leftover from the convoluted MSO upgrade, which also left an install log in the same folder...

Anyone else have ideas?
 
I also have a brand spankin' new $MyDir folder, well, it's about 3 weeks old.

I have not upgraded to Leopard. I'm running Tiger 10.4.10.

I'd really love to know what this is. It appears to be empty. When I try to cd to the folder in Terminal (as root), it plops me right back into my user home directory.
 
open up the terminal and type the following command to output more information about the folders immediately appearing on your hard disk:

Code: 
ls -l ../../

it should output something like this...

Code: 
drwxrwxr-x+ 73 root  admin      2482 Nov 13 00:08 Applications
-rw-r--r--@  1 root  admin    211968 Nov 13 21:15 Desktop DB
-rw-r--r--@  1 root  admin     43762 Sep 12 21:35 Desktop DF
drwxrwxr-x@ 15 root  admin       510 Oct 27 11:09 Developer
drwxrwxr-t+ 56 root  admin      1904 Nov  3 14:50 Library
drwxr-xr-x@  2 root  wheel        68 Oct 26 19:01 Network
drwxr-xr-x@  4 root  wheel       136 Jun  5 22:59 System
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  admin       170 Oct 26 19:03 Users
drwxrwxrwt@  5 root  admin       170 Nov 13 00:08 Volumes
drwxr-xr-x@  4 root  admin       136 Dec  2  2006 automount
drwxr-xr-x@ 40 root  wheel      1360 Oct 26 18:29 bin
drwxrwxr-t@  2 root  admin        68 Jul  1  2006 cores
dr-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel       512 Nov 11 16:12 dev
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 root  admin        11 Oct 26 18:29 etc -> private/etc
dr-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel         1 Nov 11 16:12 home
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 root  admin         9 Oct 26 17:51 mach -> /mach.sym
-rw-r--r--@  1 root  wheel  10243756 Oct  9 23:38 mach_kernel
-rw-r--r--@  1 root  wheel  10696809 Oct  9 23:38 mach_kernel.ctfsys
dr-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel         1 Nov 11 16:12 net
drwxr-xr-x@  6 root  wheel       204 Oct 26 18:34 private
drwxr-xr-x@ 66 root  wheel      2244 Oct 26 18:31 sbin
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 root  admin        11 Oct 26 18:29 tmp -> private/tmp
drwxr-xr-x@ 12 root  wheel       408 Oct 27 11:12 usr
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 root  admin        11 Oct 26 18:29 var -> private/var

If a line looks like the last in my output, that means that it is a link to another place, like an alias in Finder.

does yours say something like the following?:

Code: 
$MyDir -> Users/yourname
 
$MyDir

It doesn't appear to be an alias. I also appears to have absolutely no files within, hidden or otherwise.

Anyone else have ideas? Does anyone else with this folder have Office installed?
 
Leopard: I did a simple upgrade (by the way, no problems, works great).
Office: Yes, I have office installed

I never had that $MyDir folder in Tiger. Though I can't say for sure if it was created as a result of having Office and upgrading to Leopard.

And like the posts above, there are no folders in it what-so-ever, but it wants a password to delete...there must be some value to it. Maybe something uses it as a temp folder? I have no idea.

I'd like to get rid of it if possible...but don't care to shoot myself in the foot.

Thanks
 
Architect4122 said:
Leopard: I did a simple upgrade (by the way, no problems, works great).
Office: Yes, I have office installed

I never had that $MyDir folder in Tiger. Though I can't say for sure if it was created as a result of having Office and upgrading to Leopard.

And like the posts above, there are no folders in it what-so-ever, but it wants a password to delete...there must be some value to it. Maybe something uses it as a temp folder? I have no idea.

I'd like to get rid of it if possible...but don't care to shoot myself in the foot.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I have the same issue. Running Tiger but before upgrading to Leopard I've been told to make sure my Root was clean. Have you deleted that $MyDir folder as of yet? Any problems?

Thanks
 
$MyDir sounds like some file created with a poorly written PHP, Perl, or Python (I think) script. It should be fine to delete it as it contains nothing. If when you delete it something happens to OSX, you can easily create it again using mkdir, chmod, and cd in Single User Mode!
 
For what it's worth, I have the same $MyDir folder at the root level of my HD. When I did a date restricted search, I found that the folder was created in the middle of installing Google Sketchup 6. Can't say why or for what reason.
 
How to remove "/$MyDir"

DanL said:
For what it's worth, I have the same $MyDir folder at the root level of my HD. When I did a date restricted search, I found that the folder was created in the middle of installing Google Sketchup 6. Can't say why or for what reason.
Click to expand...

I too have this directory. Based on your info, mine also appears to be associated with the installation of Google Sketchup too (which I have since removed). I hadn't made the connection until I read your message, but date stamps on my backups prove what you mentioned...

FWIW: I'm running Tiger (10.4.11) and haven't done anything with Leopard (on this drive).

Here's some interesting terminal output....

cd /
SRP-MBP:/ sparker$ ls -al
drwxr-xr-x 2 root admin 68 Jun 17 2007 $MyDir
<<<<<SNIP>>>>>
SRP-MBP:/ sparker$ cd $MyDir
SRP-MBP:~ sparker$ pwd
SRP-MBP:~ sparker$ cd /
SRP-MBP:/ sparker$ cd "\$MyDir"
SRP-MBP:/$MyDir sparker$ pwd
/$MyDir
SRP-MBP:/$MyDir sparker$ cd /
SRP-MBP:/ sparker$

Since there is no variable $MyDir, the "cd $MyDir" command by itself resolves to "cd " which, by convention, changes to your Home directory.

To remove this directory, open terminal and type the following (which will require root password)

WARNING: WARNING: WARNING: ​
DISCLAIMER: If you mistype the following command, you'll end up removing your entire home directory!!!!! BE CAREFUL, and be sure to get the back-slash in the right place (after the first quote, and in front of the "$") I'd strongly suggest backups before doing this, and if it breaks, don't blame me!

cd /
sudo rm -rf "\$MyDir"
<<<you'll be asked for your admin password here>>>

Steve
 
yellow said:
1) you're using the wrong orientation of slashes. UNIX does not use the backslash to signify directories, it uses the forward slash.
Click to expand...

I was also confused by this at first, but he's got it correct. He's using the backslash to escape the dollar sign, not as a directory delimiter.
 
yellow said:
Yep. My mistake. Everything is corrected now.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, where did your original post and my reply from this Saturday go? The reply stating that your "correction" would result in the removal of all files on the hard drive go? Why were these posts removed????

Thanks,

Steve
 
They were removed because they were incorrect and there was no point in leaving them and further confusing people.
 
I too found that this folder is added when down loading anything from SketchUp 6. I had removed it once and then downloaded some new stuff from the 3D Warehouse in SketchUp 6 and it showed up again. When I talked with tech support at Apple they said it was "Windows" related and to go ahead and delete it.
 
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