[AUTOMATOR] Cleaning DS_Store and ._*

[michaelsanford]

I'll break the ice then.

This workflow asks for one or many locations (folders or volumes) on which you would like to remove:
• ._DS_Store
• ._FILENAME

You also, obviously, require necessary permissions to delete the files you're trying to delete.

I wipped this up in 2 minutes to clean the flash media card for my iDEN i880 cell phone, which tries to play every file it sees, which is all of them. I have not extensively tested this scirpt and do not accept any responsibility if it somehow deletes everything on your computer (though, it really shouldn't).

If you regularly use this in the same way I do (for cleaning up a cell phone memory card, for example) you can change the first element to a static folder name, and then add an Eject Volume action at the end, so it all gets done with one click.

I've also included a PDF of the workflow for anyone interested only in looking. It's pretty simple!

[suntannedboy]

Hi, I am curious that if you get _desktop.ini under each directory of your hard drive (a USB external hard drive, for instance)? I think I got those files becuase I am connecting to Windows XP and when I share files with Windows, I automatically get those uesless files. And they are kind of cluttering in my system now; do you use the same Automator workflow to eliminate those _desktop.ini files?

[ThomasG33K]

It would clean those files up with a small modification. Since there is no dot in front of the _FILENAME.ini file you need to change the code...

from

find $f -type f -name "._*" -exec rm {} \;

to

find $f -type f -name "_*" -exec rm {} \;

For added safety you could also make the line:

find $f -type f -name "_*ini" -exec rm {} \;