Pasted files have additional files pasted as well

shatpank81 · 7 Oct 2015 at 10:46

Hi
Sorry for the awful title, didnt know what to put haha

Anyway if i have a video file on my mac, mkv, avi etc and copy it to an external hard drive it puts another file on the external hard drive with exactly the same name but puts a ._**** as well
E.g. I have ripped frozen dvd to mac and have it as: frozen.mkv
I then copy it to external hdd and plug it into my tv
On the external hdd i will have frozen.mkv and also ._frozen.mkv

That ._*** file is not visible on mac, but plug external hdd into my windows pc, i can view both files and am able to delete the ._**** file

So it appears that only my mac transfers that ._**** file but yet even with hidden files on yosemite enabled i cannot see it.

What is causing this?

Feek · 7 Oct 2015 at 13:54

Does this help to explain it? It's talking about files saved as .zips but the context is the same, the files that the OS generates.

shatpank81 · 7 Oct 2015 at 14:31

Feek said:
Does this help to explain it? It's talking about files saved as .zips but the context is the same, the files that the OS generates.

so its an OS issue then.. thought so, just wanted clarification on it thanks

MagicBoy · 7 Oct 2015 at 19:19

The ._ files contains data that the OS X file system supports, but the format of the external HDD does not. Could the resource fork, could be metadata, or could be something else entirely.

The Mac has written it for a reason. Best not to delete it if you need to work on that file again on the Mac.

Six6siX · 7 Oct 2015 at 20:23

I had something similar when copying mp3's to a FAT formatted SD card using my Macbook.

When I put the card into the slot in my car headunit, loads of those ._ files appeared. Quite annoying it tries to play them and has to skip past a whole load of these before getting to the actual media.

MagicBoy · 7 Oct 2015 at 20:29

In that particular case (and with other read only media files) then you're safe to delete them.

bloodiedathame · 7 Oct 2015 at 21:03

There are a lot of quirks with hidden files and folders on OS X that show up on a Windows machine. It's normal and you can delete them if you want, though OS X will probably remake them.