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Mac users: How can I get rid of these please?


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The Cache files below are regularly being created and accumulated on my hard drive but I can't work out which application is the culprit or how to convince them that they'd prefer to live elsewhere. I can put them into the trash and flush them but they return in the next day or so and since they're at the top folder they're irritatingly in the way. Right-clicking offers to open them with GraphicConverter but then fails.

 

Can anyone suggest how to either permanently move them to a more obscure location or hide them please?

 

Pete.

 

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I suspect they are created with your scanning program. They are not specific for Mac. You probably can define a cache location in the program that creates them to move them to a more convenient spot.

How To Open .DAT File Extension Files? | FileTypeHelp.com

Jaap,

 

Thank you for your response. I'm not using a scanning program at the moment. Also the link you posted seems to be for a Windows OS.

 

Pete.

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Yes I know, but basically these files are not linked to a platform. Your e-mail program can be the cause as well. Cant you figure out which program you were using at the time these files were created?

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Yes I know, but basically these files are not linked to a platform. Your e-mail program can be the cause as well. Cant you figure out which program you were using at the time these files were created?

Unfortunately not, Jaap. I can manually delete them but they creep back when I'm not looking. I'll do a detection by elimination tomorrow to try to work out which is the mischievous application.

 

Pete.

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Guest WPalank

Pete,

Let's try the simplest possible solution. Open Disk Utility>Verify Disk Permissions>Repair Disk permissions.

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Usually wavelets/.dat Data is from VCD-videos, they can also occur when copying or ripping video- or audio-sources. You can simply try to rename the file extension of one of the files to .mpeg instead of .dat. Then try and open it in Quicktime to see what it is. Otherwise something like VCDGear might help.

 

Mike

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I agree with what Mike is saying, but in this case it appears to be the cache from ACR. From your screen shot it's on either your second drive or a partition. Is that also your scratch disk? There's no folder structure. Normally ACR pops the cache into the user's library (see the attached screenshot.) Did you direct it elsewhere? Anyway it certainly appears to be your Adobe Raw cache.

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Thanks for everyone's help. By process of elimination I've discovered that LightRoom 3 is generating the cache files because the application is installed on this disc.

 

Pete.

 

Yep, that's definitely what they are (see my screen shot above): ACR files generated from Lightroom or PS (in your case LR, since that's what you are using.)

 

You can change your cache settings and limit the size of the cache. And also put them anywhere you want. Just go to 'preferences' and then 'file handling' and at the bottom you can select the cache folder size limit and also send them elsewhere. You can also purge them from there.

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Yep, that's definitely what they are (see my screen shot above): ACR files generated from Lightroom or PS (in your case LR, since that's what you are using.)

 

You can change your cache settings and limit the size of the cache. And also put them anywhere you want. Just go to 'preferences' and then 'file handling' and at the bottom you can select the cache folder size limit and also send them elsewhere. You can also purge them from there.

Thanks for your kind instruction; I had already banished them to a place where they won't cause trouble. Where they were was on the first Finder screen and caused me to have to continually scroll down and down and down to get to my data folder. But no more!:)

 

Pete.

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Under OS X there are designated folders for storing cache files; they shouldn’t go to the top level of some volume as seen here. Utilities deleting cache files probably wouldn’t (and certainly shouldn’t) look for cache files in such an unlikely place.

 

Btw, that ‘Mac wavelet WBIN’ designation is probably a red herring. .DAT files can be anything (after all, ‘DAT’ is merely short for ‘data’) and the Finder will display the file type most recently associated with a .DAT extension (which obviously isn’t sufficient to single out a specific file type). I would be quite surprised if these files had anything to do with wavelets.

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Yes, software cache files are formally located in the user's library (which is 'hidden' now in Lion; you need to either write the command chflags nohidden ~/Library/ in the Terminal to make it always visible, or simply hit the option key while hitting 'go' in the finder menu bar and it will reveal the user's library.)

 

Those files aren't 'red herrings.' As I said before, these are the cache files from ACR in LR. Deleting them will make the render of those files open slower. However, as I had already said, you can put them anywhere. Just go to LR's preferences and change your cache size settings and you can also direct them where you want them to actually reside. There is also a purge cache dialog button located there at the bottom.

 

I don't believe anybody really needs those programs like "Mac Cleanse." Keep your OS and your file structure healthy yourself. You can do that from the Terminal (which is exactly what those programs are doing; they're like those expensive Nik plug-ins in Photoshop. You can do the exact same thing yourself in Photoshop.)

 

Here is the command to use in Terminal to 'cleanse' your Mac:

 

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

 

(your admin password will be asked for; type it in and then hit return, the maintenance will then run. When finished it will return to the Terminal prompt. Then leave Terminal and go back to what you were doing.)

 

This is the exact thing that all those 'cleaning' software programs are doing. The only difference is that they've built a GUI for you to use instead of you going to the Terminal itself. (Same thing with Nik software plug ins in Photoshop; they are made as PS actions but with a GUI.)

 

fyi, here is a dictionary of basic commands: OS X commands OSX Man Page As a Unix system, Mac OS will allow you to do anything from Terminal.

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Those files aren't 'red herrings.'

Nobody had claimed they were. As I said, the file type as shown in the Finder is a red herring, suggesting those files contained wavelet data. When the Finder thinks a file is ‘wavelet data’ it is nearly always wrong. Such as in this case. In the good old days of file type and creator codes, the Finder usually had a pretty good idea of what each file was. These days it has to rely on extensions only and an extension like ‘.DAT’ is virtually meaningless.

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