Reset view preferences for all mac folders

I would like to reset the preferences for all my Mac OS X folders. Is this possible?

Donovan

Posted 2011-11-23T15:14:47.113

Reputation: 456

Answers

This would find and delete the files storing view options under your home directory:

find ~ -name .DS_Store -delete

(And don't forget the -name flag — without it it the command would delete everything in your home directory.)

As far as I (and Wikipedia) know, the .DS_Store files mostly store information about folder-specific view options.

Lri

Posted 2011-11-23T15:14:47.113

Reputation: 34 501

Read this if you want to get rid of .DS_Store files. – Arnie97 – 2019-07-03T09:37:45.890

1Do these files only contain Finder view preferences, or maybe also some other data (e.g. thumbnail caches?) – Daniel Beck – 2011-11-23T20:32:38.090

1@DanielBeck The Quick Look thumbnails are stored in /private/var/folders/*/*/*/com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailcache. – Lri – 2011-11-23T20:55:41.923

Nice read about where they come from.

– slhck – 2011-11-23T20:56:13.763

To restore a folder to the default view settings,

Open the View Options panel (Command-J, or View » Show View Options);
Then hold down the Option key and click the bottom button. With the Option key down, the ‘Use as Defaults’ button will change to ‘Restore to Defaults’.

hanson

Posted 2011-11-23T15:14:47.113

Reputation: 121

Although the 'correct' answer is great (if you don't make mistakes in copying that dangerous command', this answer is excellent if you don't want to risk Terminal commands. – LWTBP – 2019-11-29T06:28:53.983