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I work in an environment where a Macintosh user and I (a Windows user) work together. The Macintosh user generates files starting with ._ If they access a file called foo, they’ll create a ._foo file in the same directory.

I'm annoyed by these files when the Macintosh user accesses a lot of files, as it makes my Explorer look very cluttered.

How can I hide these files?

  • I can keep deleting them, but they'll just reappear. It also seems the Macintosh user notices performance differences after I've deleted them.
  • I can't hide hidden files, there are hidden files which I have to access.
  • I can't change any settings on the Macintosh user's system.

Is there a way for me to hide all files starting with ._, effectively hiding the problem?

Gareth
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Martijn
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2 Answers2

2

The command below should work. Execute it after you've navigated to the directory that contains all the files (and directories) starting with ._ It will also process subdirectories and hide all folders and files that start with ._

ATTRIB +H /S /D ._*

If you have Show hidden files, folders, and drives enabled, then you will still see these files. As a workaround, set the SYSTEM attribute in addition to the HIDDEN attribute with this command:

ATTRIB +H +S /S /D ._*

Hopefully, you have Hide protected operating system files enabled or it will not work:

Hide protected operating system files

Gareth
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Vinayak
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0

If you show invisible files, you'll see them.

The Mac can be told not to write them, and to be honest, I've never noticed a performance hit when doing that.

See this question: Is there any way to prevent a Mac from creating dot underscore files?

Community
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Tetsujin
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