When my USB flash drive, which contains only some image files, is plugged into a Windows computer some icons other than the image file icons appear. What are they and is there a way to just have the image files appear? This doesn't happen with flash drive transfers from people using Windows.<br><br>Windows screenshot of my files from flash drive.<br><br> <br><br>Old farts, the hidden caulk of civilization. Jim Atkinson

I believe any file beginning with a "." is invisible on OSX. Its a nice way to keep unix-like systems from getting too cluttered for the user. Just like how all the applications are really folders full of all kinds of files (right-click on one and select "show package contents"). <br><br>The DS_Store file contains directory information and is in all your directories on your Mac too. You could delete it but the Finder (or some other low level app) will just recreate it again.<br><br>I have no idea what those other invisible files are. Just as a guess, some graphics application you are using is making invisible thumbnails, or something. I'd just dump them, they may not return.<br><br><br>You could use an application like Onyx to let you see all invisible files. Then you could open your graphics application and see if it is writing those invisible files to your disk.<br><br>As far as how to get the standard OSX invisible files (i.e. DS_store) to remain invisible on Windows... I have no idea, this is a Mac forum. <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Trog on 04/27/06 11:55 PM (server time).</EM></FONT></P>

Yep, the DS_Store is just directory info. Delete the other two. If you had a program like Cocktail you could make all invisible files visible on the Mac and you would see DS_Store files in every folder.<br><br>

You could also do it in the terminal by typing<br><br>defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles '1'<br><br>I think you might need to relaunch Finder to get it to work.<br><br>Do the same thing, but replace the '1' with a '0' in order to get things back to normal.<br><br>

Everything Cocktail does can be done in the terminal. I just prefer one click instead of typing it out. <br><br>

Files copied onto a DOS (i.e. FAT) formatted drive in OSX will be accompanied by an extra file that has the same name with a ._ at the front of it, e.g. ._filename.jpg - this is OSX's way of maintaining the file's resource fork info on DOS-type volumes.<br><br>If you open a mac volume from windows (e.g. on a network) and copy from that end, you don't get the extra file, but if you perform the copy from OSX, you will (and this also applies to drives formatted to be readable in winxx). It's fine to delete the ._files in most cases as these days no really important data is stored that way, apart from thumbnails and perhaps user-inserted file or spotlight comments. Oh, and of course if you then delete the file in winxx, the ._file remains unless you delete that too, which probably explains the presence of your other two files.<br><br>I've got my tibook networked to a pc, and win98 refuses to open the mac volumes, so I always move files across from the mac end. Every so often I have to enable 'show invisible files' on the pc and clear off a whole stack of ._files that are redundant. 'tain't no thing...<br><br>- padmavyuha<br><br>[color:purple]A lopsided man runs best along the little side-hills of success<br>- Frank Moore Colby</font color=purple>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>Files copied onto a DOS (i.e. FAT) formatted drive in OSX will be accompanied by an extra file that has the same name with a ._ at the front of it, e.g. ._filename.jpg - this is OSX's way of maintaining the file's resource fork info on DOS-type volumes.<p><hr></blockquote><p>These files (just the jpg files) are being transferred from OSX to a flashdrive and then to a Windows machine, which I suppose has a DOS formatted drive. They caused some confusion to the both the Windows machine operator and me because neither of us knew what they were. The files were going into a slide program using a digital projector. We got it worked out (ignored the mystery files)but both of us wondered what the were.<br><br>Thanks<br><br>Old farts, the hidden caulk of civilization. Jim Atkinson

Ay, OSX adds these invisibles when you copy your files onto the flash drive, because the flash drive itself is a DOS formatted volume - otherwise the pc wouldn't be able to read files on it.<br><br>- Padmavyuha<br><br>[color:purple]A lopsided man runs best along the little side-hills of success<br>- Frank Moore Colby</font color=purple>

I use to get that even back in the System 7 days. A PC using customer would get their PC floppy disk back and say what are these DB, DF files on my floppy? Invisible data fork files on used by the Mac but, visible and not used by the PC.<br><br>