Those extra files that OS X includes on a flash drive

[Forkjulle]

When I copy, say, an AVI (or whatever file) onto a flash drive, to give to my friend, and they open it on their PC, then my Mac seems to include extra files that are tiny in size, but auite annoying. They have a "." in front of them.

What are those files and why are they included?

 

[Dave Braine]

They are "hidden" files, which as their name suggests are normally hidden, and are of no consequence. There is an option in Windows to display them and your friend obviously has this option set. Don't worry about them.

 

[Dalton63841]

Because the filesystem is not Mac native, it creates those files to keep track of file attributes. That's just the nuisance of having a mixed PC/Mac environment. You can prevent their creation on network volumes, but not locally attached drives, to my knowledge.

 

[Weaselboy]

When I copy, say, an AVI (or whatever file) onto a flash drive, to give to my friend, and they open it on their PC, then my Mac seems to include extra files that are tiny in size, but auite annoying. They have a "." in front of them.

What are those files and why are they included?

There actually is an app called Blue Harvest you can run on your Mac to prevent those files from getting saved to specific, external drives.