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Removing ._ files

My business uses both Macs and PC.

The deleted all the files to reformat the folder structure we have set up. Long story short we used a USB that is formated for a PC and now there are a lot of ._ files.

I have seen the recommendation to take out all the files and reformat the USB and reinstall the files again but this would take to much time as the internet here is slow and would take a little more then one day to sync the computers.

I see that I can manually remove them from the server, but does drop box have an option to find ._ files to delete them rather then going threw all the folders?

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Robert S.

What you are seeing are OS X system files which are normally hidden by the Mac OS filesystem.

They can be deliberately made visible, but the usual reason is because the Dropbox folder has been moved to a non-Mac filesystem (i.e. FAT) which ignores the hidden attribute of those files. Almost invariably it turns out to be the use of a removable external drive of some sort.

You can delete them but, if that's the case, they'll continue to be recreated every time you access that folder on your Mac.

The effect would have been mitigated by ensuring the target volume was first formatted to the native MacOS filesystem. However, I would also note that Dropbox are pretty clear that they don't support removable drives or network volumes because there's a high risk of data loss associated with such devices.

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Jude H.

+1 This is creating a nightmare for us too.

Stacy R.1

Us, too.

Kevin W.19

Also.

Robert S.

What you are seeing are OS X system files which are normally hidden by the Mac OS filesystem.

You can delete them but, if that's the case, they'll continue to be recreated every time you access that folder on your Mac.

Carlo J.

Thanks for the detailed explenation Robert S. I'll try this out.

Cheers

Nick M.17

Hi I use a mixture of Windowss, Macs, local/removable/network hard drives. Not an entirely unusual situation. I understand the good explanation above. Thoughts:

1. An option to not show these files on the web interface would help deal with some of the irritation.

2. An option to not create those the ,_ files within the Windows client software may also be worth looking at

Also, does the same issue occur with competitors products - Google Drive, OneDrive etc? Either way should be looked into to either keep up with them or have an edge on them.

Thanks

Nick