Those annoying .DS_Store files

[Doctor Q]

I find it annoying that I leave a trail of .DS_Store files whenever I use the Finder with disk volumes over NFS, such as on a Unix server. (This is the file the Finder uses to store display information for each folder.)

Luckily, I found an Apple Knowledge Base article that tells how to avoid it. Just type

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

in Terminal, for each user account. After that, .DS_Store files won't be created for remote file servers under NFS, SMB/CIFS, AFP, or WebDAV.

Just thought I'd pass the tip along.

 

[richard.mac]

I find it annoying that I leave a trail of .DS_Store files whenever I use the Finder with disk volumes over NFS, such as on a Unix server. (This is the file the Finder uses to store display information for each folder.)

Luckily, I found an Apple Knowledge Base article that tells how to avoid it. Just type

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

in Terminal, for each user account. After that, .DS_Store files won't be created for remote file servers under NFS, SMB/CIFS, AFP, or WebDAV.

Just thought I'd pass the tip along.

nice tip doc! but does this mean that all Finder windows on NFS will be the default size as they cant save window size and position data to the .DS_Store files?

 

[Doctor Q]

I think the answer is yes. So this setting makes sense when your habit is infrequent trips to NFS servers, but not if you use them for regular file browsing.

And, of course, you can't set it as a preference for one directory at time, since it would need a .DS_Store file to save the preference in!

 

[bigwig]

Wonderful! Now all we need is a preference to eliminate .DS_Store files in every directory, not just network mounted ones.

 

[SC68Cal]

Wonderful! Now all we need is a preference to eliminate .DS_Store files in every directory, not just network mounted ones.

At this point, the best approach involves a cron script that invokes

find ~/ -name \.DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 rm

A question that does come to mind though: "Why the heck is Finder and UNIX in the same posting?"

 

[bigwig]

At this point, the best approach involves a cron script that invokes

find ~/ -name \.DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 rm

A question that does come to mind though: "Why the heck is Finder and UNIX in the same posting?"

find ~ -name .DS_Store -delete -print

Still annoying even if automated. .DS_Store shouldn't have been invented in the first place, it's a horrible idea on any multi-user system (as OSX is).

 

[SC68Cal]

find ~ -name .DS_Store -delete -print

Still annoying even if automated.

Heartily agreed.

.DS_Store shouldn't have been invented in the first place, it's a horrible idea on any multi-user system (as OSX is).

http://rixstep.com/2/1/20071115,00.shtml

OK now let's look at screen resolutions. On a typical laptop today you get a resolution of 1440x900. So do the math: that gives you a total of 1,296,000 pixels. That's all you get.

OK so now let's divide that total number of pixels by the number of possibly pertinent folders on a modern Unix/OS X machine. And let's add in twenty user folders you keep for yourself. That gives you a grand total of 48,725 folders you conceivably might be interested in.

That gives you 26.59825551565 pixels per folder.

 

[BlackMax]

I've read the original purpose of .DS_Store files was "to give former users of the classic Mac OS the same user experience they had in previous operating system versions" (http://www.koozie.org/2004/12/what_are_ds_sto.html).

If this is true, it would seem that .DS_Store files have long ago served their purpose and are no longer required.

What are the chances of seeing an updated file management application (sans .DS_Store flles) in the next version of OS X?