"._" files from MacOS

General Help
1

A number of months back, I copied files (photos, documents, videos, music) from my MacBook Pro over to my Zorin machine (a PC). I transferred them using a 128GB USB stick formatted with ExFAT. I recently noticed that the process brought over hundreds of "._" and ".DS_Store" files. I know what their purpose is on MacOS and am wondering if they have a useful function in Zorin OS and should be left alone, or if they can be safely deleted as useless clutter. Thanx.

2

They are clutter as they only relate to MacOS settings, configurations, etc.

3

Hello Neal,

I had the same issue when I migrated my data from MacOS to Zorin. I cleaned all these files since they do take some space and have no purpose on Zorin.
I found this script to clean them up safely but I would suggest that you backup your files first just in case: GitHub - drazulay/turdmaster: Functions to delete Mac OSX filesystem turds (apologies for the naming but it's not coming from me...)
It did not work out of the box, I had to replace all the "==" with "=" in the "is_turd" file
Then add it to your path variable in the terminal.

export PATH=${HOME}/turdmaster:${PATH}

Then just run it like this:

dump_turds /dirname

I hope this helps

4

Thanks for responding. I thought this was probably the case, that they were clutter, but wanted to double check with others.

5

Thanks for responding. I'm a bit wary to make sweeping changes using the command line in the Terminal, so I'll delete them manually after I've finished transferring all the data over from my MacBook to my Zorin box. It'll be another "project" to add to my to-do list so I can fill some time during the upcoming long, dark North Dakota winter :snowflake:

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