Is there a definitive way to prevent creation of "._file name" on network volumes?

Neither of the two were full commands.

dot_clean requires the path to the folder you wish to clean.

dot_clean -m /Volumes/sharename

If you have the same volumes you are always using, you could create a Shortcut to run the command on those volumes and then eject them:

You would make a shortcut that runs a shell script with this:

dot_clean -m /Volumes/VolumeName
diskutil -eject /Volumes/VolumeName

ditto is a copying utility in the command line. If you use ditto --norsrc, the resource forks are not copied, so no metadata is copied.

For any command line utility, you can use man <command> to learn about usage.

man dot_clean
man ditto

I'm not going to use the Terminal to copy files all the time, I use the Terminal only when I have to.

Well, that's the only way to prevent writing the metadata to an unaware file system. You have to post-clean or not write them when you copy. ditto can likely be wrapped up in a Shortcut as I did with dot_clean.

there's a command that you can find on a thousand websites, that is completely useless:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true

Never did anything.

It isn’t meant to stop the metadata. The DS refers to .DS_Store. Why anyone claimed it stopped the writing of metadata I don’t know.

Is there a way to get rid of these for once and for all? At least until I wipe my Mac's internal drive to install the next major version of macOS, then I can run it again. But once a year is fine, especially if it works.

No, you can’t prevent writing. You can use dot_clean -m to recursively remove them, but I’ve never run it on a network Share.

Or, don’t use Finder to transfer the files. You can use ditto -norsrc

The only such solution I know of is BlueHarvest. It prevents the Mac from writing .DS_Store, and ._xxx AppleDouble files from being written to non-Apple systems, such as Linux servers, or Microsoft formatted drives (ExFAT, FAT32).

You can set up its preferences to automatically keep drives you select clean of such files. It can also clean such drives that already have .xxx files on them.

It has a 30 day trial so you can test to see if it will do what you expect.

I thought BlueHarvest was dead. Apparently, it's not dead, yet.

BlueHarvest doesn't prevent writing the files. All it does is clean them up automatically which is pretty close to preventing them. Nothing wrong with the app, it just doesn't prevent writing the files. There are people who want to prevent writing, not clean up the detritus.

There is no way to stop macOS from writing the files short of not using the Finder to write the files (or manipulate folder view--.DS_Store). It is possible to prevent .DS_Store on SMB network shares (previously posted defaults command), but I'm not sure about external drives.

I so rarely use that type of media anymore, I don't have any use for BlueHarvest. I just created a Shortcut to clean the flash drives. Now that Prusa has a network transfer option, I really have no need for the shortcut.

BlueHarvest doesn't prevent writing the files. All it does is clean them up automatically which is pretty close to preventing them.

I couldn't quite be sure. The preference setup makes it sound like you can prevent such files from being written. Or, maybe what they meant is it watches your tagged volumes for such entries and then removes them without being prompted.

But reading it again, yes, your entries are only there for manual cleaning. You select a volume in your list, then choose the menu to Clean using BlueHarvest.

Which makes purchasing the app somewhat pointless. You can do the same cleaning yourself in Terminal, which is likely what BlueHarvest runs in the background.

Which makes purchasing the app somewhat pointless. You can do the same cleaning yourself in Terminal, which is likely what BlueHarvest runs in the background.

I have always thought the same, but reading through their FAQ, they offer a lot of cross-platform cleanup options, so can see where it would be useful to people who have to deal with all the different operating systems on a regular basis.

RobFocus wrote:

that command "dot_clean -m" doesn't work for me. Obviously I try it when I have the Terminal open in the SMB drive I mount almost all the time. It gives me this:

"usage: dot_clean  [-fmnpsv] [--keep=[mostrecent|dotbar|native]] [directory ...]"

Copy and paste (without [folder path]) the following command to the Terminal window and type a space to the end, and drag the USB drive (or a network folder) to the end, and press Return. Then eject the USB drive without opening it in the Finder (so new dot files are not generated).

dot_clean -mnf [folder path]

That deletes the '._' dot files that carry some Mac-specific extended file attributes that Windows does not understand (and are usually not needed anyway).

In the past I made an Automator app to do that but some macOS update broke it so I have used the Terminal instead.