How to prevent Mac OS X creating .DS_Store files on non Mac (HFS) Volumes?

Question

Is there a way to prevent Mac OS X creating .DS_Store and other hidden meta-files on foreign volumes like NTFS and FAT? I share an NTFS partition with data like Thunderird & Firefox's profiles and apache's DocumentRoot, between Mac OS X and Windows, which is very handy. I don't mind if Mac OS X is not capable of indexing or otherwise doing the neat things those metafiles are for.

Note: It's not shared over a network, both operating systems and the shared partition coexist on the same disk, on the same machine.

Answer 1

If you are sharing the NTFS partition over a network, using SMB or some such, you can turn it off.

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

Apple tech bulletin "How to prevent .DS_Store file creation over network connections". I have not verified that this still works with Snow Leopard.

Answer 2

I use this I set it up once when I got annoyed with the same problem. This method make the system do it all automatically.

1. Create a script called Remove_Hidden_Files.sh by opening terminal and for example cd ~/Documents and type touch Remove_Hidden_Files.sh

2. Using vi create the script. In Terminal type vi Remove_Hidden_Files.sh

3. Press "I" to get in to insert mode and type the following (Hint to get # press alt and 3)

   #!/bin/bash
   # Removing the hidden files from my drive using the find command. Change xxx to the name of your external volume or path you wish to run the command on.
   # the -mount will stop the find command going to other volumes other than specified.
   
   find -x /Volumes/(xxx) -mount -name '.DS_Store' | xargs rm -rf
   find -x /Volumes/(xxx) -mount -name '.Spotlight-V100' | xargs rm -rf
   find -x /Volumes/(xxx) -mount -name '.Trashes' | xargs rm -rf
   find -x /Volumes/(xxx) -mount -name '._.Trashes' | xargs rm -rf
   find -x /Volumes/(xxx) -mount -name '.fseventsd' | xargs rm -rf
   

4. Press escape to get out of insert mode and hold shift and press :

5. Type wq! and then press enter

6. Make the script executable chmod 775 ~/Documents/Remove_Hidden_Files.sh

7. Test this out to make sure it works. You can easily do this by opening terminal and type cd /Volumes/(xxx) press enter and then ls -la to list all the files and you should see a .DS_Store if not navigate with the finder to the volume and then repeat the command and you should see one there.

8. Open another terminal by pressing command key and N

9. Type cd ~/Documents

10. Type sh Remove_Hidden_Files.sh

11. Go to the other terminal window and check the .DS_Store files are removed.

12. Create a launch daemon. This means to run automatically so you don't have to do anything.

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13. Create a daemon for you user account and call it com.remove_hidden_files.Launchd

14. In the command box type sh ~/Documents/Remove_Hidden_Files.sh

15. You can either type in the path or browse to it /Volumes/(xxx)

16. Reboot the machine and try it out

Note if you rename your external drive, use a different named drive or path you will need to change the script.

Answer 3

I use BlueHarvest for this purpose:

https://zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest/

Works across all volumes and not just network shares as per Apple's solution.