How to stop OS X from writing Spotlight and Trash files to memory cards and USB sticks?

Question

When plugging a USB stick into a Mac, OS X creates a number of hidden files on the stick, including a Spotlight index and Trash folder.

Example from the terminal for a USB stick "Untitled":

$ ls -a /Volumes/Untitled
.Spotlight-V100
.Trashes
._.Trashes
.disk
.fseventsd

It even does this on the xD memory card for my camera, so after having copied my pictures and deleted them from the card, the card is still full.

Is it possible to turn this off for USB and memory cards, so OS X either writes these files to the primary disk or doesn't write them at all?

Answer 1

As I know you have 2 choices :

1. TinkerTool (free)

1. BlueHarvest (commercial)

Answer 2

For just a particular mounted volume - like a flash drive called yourUSBstick in this example - these commands will remove existing cruft, stop Spotlight indexing now and in the future, stop the related fsevents logging, and disable the Trash feature.

mdutil -i off /Volumes/yourUSBstick
cd /Volumes/yourUSBstick
rm -rf .{,_.}{fseventsd,Spotlight-V*,Trashes}
mkdir .fseventsd
touch .fseventsd/no_log .metadata_never_index .Trashes
cd -

Other unfamiliar stuff you may still see you probably want to keep, like Apple double "._*" files and other Apple DS cruft relating to icons and window placement.

Answer 3

To keep Spotlight from indexing non system volumes, add /Volumes to the Privacy list in System Preferences > Spotlight.

/Volumes is the point in the file system where all non-system disks are mounted by default.

Answer 4

Another way to deal with (just the) spotlight files, is to add that volume to your Spotlight exclude list. Plug the device in, and go to the Spotlight prefpane in System Preferences. Select the Privacy tab. Now drag that volume from your desktop up into the privacy list.. or use the + button at the bottom to add it. No more spotlight indexing will happen on that volume.

Answer 5

1. Insert the USB drive.
2. Navigate to Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities and open Terminal.

3. At the Terminal prompt, type the following command, replacing path_to_volume with the real path:

   sudo mdutil -i off /path_to_volume

4. Press return.

5. If prompted for a password, type your admin password, then press return. You will receive the response:
   

   /path_to_volume/: Indexing disabled for volume. in Mac OS X 10.4 or

   /path_to_volume: Indexing disabled. under Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

   Spotlight will immediately cease to index the specified volume.

6. If you are using Mac OS X 10.5 or later, skip to step 9.

7. At the Terminal prompt, type the following command, again substituting the correct path:

   sudo mdutil -E /path_to_volume and press return

8. If prompted for a password, type your admin password, then press return. You will receive the response:

   /path_to_volume/: Volume index removed.

9. At the Terminal prompt, type exit then press return.
10. Quit Terminal.

Thanks to thexlab.com, their troubleshooting Mac OS X e-books, and their website for the detailed explanation of why other methods sort of work.

Answer 6

I use the MacOS Terminal command line to list and delete all these files and folders before ejecting the device from the desktop. For some files, you may have to sudo the /bin/rm command.

Answer 7

I use Clean Eject (free) and a custom Automator Service (still private) so I can assign a hotkey to clean & eject a volume using the app.

Answer 8

This should really be a comment, but I don't have enough points to actually comment so I had to write a separate answer.

If a moderator could move this to the right location, I would really appreciate it. :)

Anyway here's what I wanted to say:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

@ Miles Leacy's post

and @ qarma's comment:

No, this is still possible even in OSX 10.9, but you need to do a few extra steps now:

1) In Finder click Go then click Go To Folder...

2) Type /Volumes and click Go.

3) A Finder window will open, and it should say Volumes at the top.

This is the most important step:

4) Next to where it says Volumes at the top of the Finder window, there is a tiny blue folder icon. Click and drag this icon left into your Favorites panel.

5) Now you will have access to your Volumes folder anywhere, including in Spotlight settings like Miles Leacy suggested. (Whenever you need it, just click on the Favorites link to select it.)

Hope this helps,

Best,

Vlad :)

~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~

What it looks like after adding the Volumes folder to the Spotlight exceptions list:

Notice in the background you can see my post in Safari. ;)

Answer 9

An easy way to stop my car audio trying to read hidden Mac OS files is to remove them in Windows OS. Simply copy your MP3 music to the USB stick from iTunes. Swap the stick into Windows OS and select view hidden files from folder options. This will then allow you to delete every single hidden file that your trusty Mac placed on your USB stick including those pesky .trashes files. Finally a use for Windows OS!

Answer 10

Actually touching the .Trashes file will be the best way to solve your main problem since .Trashes is now a file instead of a folder. This means that Apple can't relocate the files to the .Trashes folder when you delete them and your drive is no longer full.

Another option is to hit Cmd-Opt-Shift-Backspace to force Finder to empty the .Trashes content on the card before you eject it.

The first method is really the best as the second affects all Trash contents on all drives.

However, it seems from your post that you are more worried about the pollution of the drive by the various dot files. If you follow the steps mentioned above, you'll save your disk space, but there will be a minimum of dot files created.

Answer 11

I ended up using a free app "Hidden Cleaner". My car's MP3 player was trying to read .(MP3filename).mp3 (hollow, empty mp3 files) as well. Go to Macintosh HD in Devices section on the Finder left hand menu and drag your USB drive and drop onto the Hidden Cleaner app. It will cleanup the hollow files and leave the real MP3s and will eject your USB.

Note: That is not a permanent solution. You need to do above everytime you copy files. I don't mind though.

Answer 12

Old question, but I, finally, discovered Asepsis. This is an open source utility that solves this age-old problem by confining all the .DS_STORE directories in one place, by default /usr/local/.dscage
After installation, and a reboot, no more .DS_STORE on USB drives, with the advantage (for some of us) of not having to disable indexing on external drives. Since version 1.4 it also supports OS X Mavericks.

Update from Aepsis website: "Warning: Asepsis is no longer under active development and supported under OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) and later.

Answer 13

it can't work.

no way to resolve this problem.