.DS_Store (Desktop Services Store)^[1] is a hidden file created by Apple Inc's Mac OS X operating system to store custom attributes of a folder such as the position of icons or the choice of a background image^[2]. By default, Mac OS X will create a .DS_Store file in every folder that it accesses, even folders on remote systems (for example, folders shared over a SMB or AFP connection) and even if the user has only customized the appearance of the folder by moving its Finder window^[3]. This is in contrast to the preexisting system for the same purpose used in previous versions of the Macintosh Finder, which would merely place a number of invisible files at the root of the volume being accessed (even on alien filesystems), always storing the settings and metadata for all of the folders in the entire volume within this single set of files. There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Apple Inc. ... Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... It has been suggested that Maintenance OS be merged into this article or section. ... In computing, a directory, catalog, or folder, is an entity in a file system which can contain a group of files and/or other directories. ... Server Message Block (SMB) is an application-level network protocol mainly applied to shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. ... The Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) is a layer 6 (presentation layer) network protocol that offers file services for Mac OS X and Classic Mac OS. In Mac OS X, AFP is one of several file services supported including Server Message Block (SMB), Network File System (NFS), File Transfer Protocol (FTP... The Finder is the default application program used on the Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems that is responsible for the overall user-management of files, disks, network volumes and the launching of other applications. ... The simplest definition of metadata is that it is data about data - more specifically information (data) about a particular content (data). ...

After complaints from users about these files being created on remote systems, Apple posted an article on their support site telling users how they can disable the creation of remote .DS_Store files over network connections^[4].

Although these files were initially primarily used by the Finder they were envisioned as a more general purpose store of metadata about the display options of folders such as icon position and view settings^[1]. For example, since Mac OS X Tiger (10.4), .DS_Store files contain the Spotlight Comments of all the folder's files. The Finder is the default application program used on the Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems that is responsible for the overall user-management of files, disks, network volumes and the launching of other applications. ...

References

Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 272nd day of the year (273rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 272nd day of the year (273rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 272nd day of the year (273rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External Links

A reverse-engineered description of the file format