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Amandasaurus
Asked: 2009-06-30 08:39:48 +0800 CST

Is ._ (dot underscore) from Mac OS X?

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I'm cleaning up some files that have been handled by Mac OS X. This is also the destination for FTP transfers. I know about .DS_Store files. However I'm seeing some ._XXXX files, ie. files that are prefixed with a dot and an underscore. Is that some sort of Mac OS X backup / transfer file? Where would they come from?

mac-osx dotfiles

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Yes, this is an OSX thing and is related to the AppleDouble File Format. When OSX writes to a non-native file system (so not HFS), that does not support resource forks, it writes extended info such as finder information in a "._" hidden file.

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  2. Apple has a page about this : http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20578

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  3. If the files are visible on a Mac, the dot_clean command line tool might help. There is a man page.

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  4. Those files are indeed from Mac OS X. I imagine they're a metadata file of some kind, but I don't know what they do. I do know, however, that they can be successfully deleted without any negative repercussions .

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