4 replies to this topic

[Sean Zhu]

Can anyone help me make a shell script (preferably a one-liner) that removes all .DS_Store (case sensitive is okay) files from my entire (web) home directory?  I want to use this as a cron job.

I tried

locate ~/*.DS_Store | rm -fv

but it doesn't work.  I'm probably using the '|' all wrong.

And yes, I know I can tell Finder to not create .DS_Store files, but still.

[Ad Bot]

[Jan J]

Please follow this tutorial (to stop Finder from creating .DS_store files on your Network  drives):

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629

[Eli L]

In the directory you want to start from run the following and it will recursively delete all those files. (Works great for removing those .svn folders too )

find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

Edit:
This should do the exact same thing (so you have a choice):

find . -name .DS_Store -exec 'rm -rf {};'

[Sean Zhu]

Jan:
Thanks, but like I said, I'd rather have the server delete the files later (I may use the .DS_Store files temporarily).
BTW, TinkerTool can change the setting for you.

Eli:
Thanks, I will use it.
How do I know what current directory it starts from?
Anyway, I can use this, right?

find ~ -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

How would I remove all files beginning with (or containing, if that is easier) ".wysiwygPro_edit_" (those HTML editor files)?

[budswell]

Sean Zhu, on 30 July 2009 - 11:34 AM, said:

How do I know what current directory it starts from?

The first parameter to find is the directory. So in this case it starts at ~ which is a shortcut for your home directory.

Sean Zhu, on 30 July 2009 - 11:34 AM, said:

How would I remove all files beginning with (or containing, if that is easier) ".wysiwygPro_edit_" (those HTML editor files)?

The -name parameter can include wildcards (make sure you quote it so the * is not expanded by the shell and goes through to the find process itself.

find $HOME -name ".wysiwygPro_edit_*" -exec rm {} \;