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Flash card is indicated mostly filled

enter image description here

Simultaneously, I can't find any files of appropriate size

% sudo du -ah   
128K    ./.fseventsd/fseventsd-uuid
256K    ./.fseventsd
340M    ./NORMAL/2022-08-05-19-08-17.MOV
1.8M    ./NORMAL/2022-08-05-12-01-48.JPG
342M    ./NORMAL
du: ./.Spotlight-V100: Operation not permitted
460M    ./EVENT/2022-08-05-16-56-54.MOV
460M    ./EVENT
du: ./.Trashes: Operation not permitted
803M    .

What are these files (.Spotlight-V100 and .Trashes) which are not accessible? Why aren't they accessible even with sudo? How to access them?

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3
  • You're fully right, these permission problems are not normal. I suspect something rendered them inaccessible on purpose, perhaps to hide a malware.
    – athena
    Commented Aug 27 at 6:53
  • Could you add the output of: /usr/bin/sudo ls -@aleO in the root directory of your flash card? ( The absolute path is here to avoid to use a wrong one. )
    – athena
    Commented Aug 27 at 6:54
  • If you don't have any really missing file on your flash card, better if you have a backup, then could you run Disk Utility > First Aid on it?
    – athena
    Commented Aug 27 at 6:56

2 Answers 2

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0

As the names suggest, .Spotlight-V100 is a Spotlight index for the contents, and .Trashes is the Trash folder for the volume.

If you empty the Trash in the Finder, then that should clear the contents of the .Trashes folder.

The Spotlight folder is unlikely to be massive. I have one that's 500Mb on a 2 TB drive (that's c. 50% full).

FWIW, I can access the Spotlight folder on my external drives, but the .Trashes denies me, as it has no read attributes.

    Ben@Bens-Mini Media City % ls -la
total 24
drwxrwxr-x@ 18 Ben   staff    576 19 May 19:41 .
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel    160  7 Aug 17:53 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 Ben   staff  10244 29 Nov  2021 .DS_Store
d--x--x--x  10 Ben   staff    320  6 Aug 09:47 .DocumentRevisions-V100
drwx------   5 Ben   staff    160 30 May  2020 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx--x--t   5 Ben   staff    160 26 Sep  2020 .TemporaryItems
d-wx--x--t   3 Ben   staff     96 29 Oct  2021 .Trashes
drwx------  26 Ben   staff    832  6 Aug 09:46 .fseventsd
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-2

Yeah the files you 'delete' on a fat file system go to a place called .trashes What I do to remove it, as the permissionings do not allow deletion, is change the permissionings first. In fact you can't even read the folder. chmod 777 * This changes everything to all permissions. Then cd .Trashes chmod 777 * Then cd 502(I think its 502 or 503 or something) chmod 777 * again You will get to a bunch of files, or you will have to keep going through folders until you get to the files. make sure you chmod 777 * the files then rm -fR * will delete everything.

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  • As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.
    – Community Bot
    Commented Aug 27 at 7:44
  • I cannot make this any more specific as the file structure of the usb is not consistent and depending on how it was formatted or what files have been deleted, it can change. However I will try and make it more specific but thanks loads for the -2. chmod 777 *, cd .Trashes, chmod 777 *, cd (whateverthenumberis), chmod 777 *, rm -fR * Let me know if you have any issues with this.
    – Ray Kohlhepp-Zeng
    Commented Sep 1 at 2:20

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