Quickly remove ._ files from Windows' shares

Nov 18, '02 09:08:50AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

Here's an easy UNIX command to quickly delete all "._" files written to a mounted Windows drive. These resource files are used by the Mac, but just clutter up the directories on Windows. Here's how to remove them quickly:

  1. Mount the Windows drive.
  2. Open the Terminal application and type:
     % cd /Volumes/Windows_Drive_Name
    % find . -name "._*" -exec rm '{}' \; -print
    This will find all ._* files, delete them, and print to screen a list of all files deleted.
This is pretty drastic, so be sure not to do this on a mounted OS X drive.

[Editor's note: I haven't tested this one myself, but you might want to put a "-i" after the "rm", which will force you to say "yes" to each file that is about to be deleted ... at least until you're certain the command is doing exactly what you want it to do.]

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