file
I have a MacBook which was recently bought and macOS Sierra 10.12.5
Sometimes the weird files named '!' and 'export' are being created in some random directories, for example in my home directory or in others. The files are 0kb both and have such permissions and owner:
-rw-r–r– alx(my user) staff
What application creates such files and why? I'm tired of deleting these files from everywhere.
In a nutshell, how would one access this feature in Finder – not Spotlight (Command+Space) – but the adding of tags themselves?
From Finder, highlight a file and hit Cmd-I (or right click and select Get Info) to bring up the File Info Dialog for the file. In this dialog, the Spotlight Comments field is where you add tag data. Just add text to this field to "tag" the file.
Here's a good article on how to become a meta-data wizard in OS X:
https://gigaom.com/2007/02/01/using-metadata-effectively-in-os-x/
If was tagging that screen capture, I might use the following in the comments box:
customer-name presentation product-name
So that I could find that screen shot by the customer, or by the fact that it's being used in a presentation, or by the name of the product I'm showing them.
Where are these tags stored? Do they go in .DS_Store (I tend to delete those!) or elsewhere in the filesystem?
Yes, they're stored in the .DS_Store files you see in each folder. These files are read by Finder. The information is also stored in Extended Attributes (EAs) on the files themselves. Spotlight will prefer to read the data from EAs. EAs are a feature of the HFS+ filesystem, so remote filesystems might not necessarily have EAs available on files. In these cases, .DS_Store files are the fallback. Spotlight would also have a tag <-> file mapping section in its database but that's only accessible to Spotlight.
Does this tagging mechanism work on removable drives? What are the requirements?
Generally: yes. You can add tags to files and folders on removable drives and remote shares. Unless you've turned off .DS_Store creation on remote shares, OS X will just add these files and keep the meta-data there for you.
Does this tagging mechanism work over a network share? I have some Windows SMB network shares at home that I frequently store files on. Would it work on those or is another configuration required?
Yes, see above. If you didn't want OS X to do this, run:
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
And then restart Finder.
Aside from Spotlight, are there any command-line tools for searching through or accessing the tag data for files?
Lots!
Here's a list of 7 file-tagging applications for OS X: http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-roundups/7-file-tagging-applications-for-os-x/
I personally love and use LaunchBar which is like Spotlight on steroids.
Hallelujah! I figured it out. Okay, so first thing I did was create a new account, as suggested by another answer. The problem did not occur in there, so clearly the problem was limited to my account. I then went into Safe Mode into my account. The problem did not occur as well. So clearly something was loaded in normal mode but not in safe mode that was causing the problem.
While in safe mode, I then cleared the caches (in Terminal, using sudo mv /Library/Caches ~/Temp/ and the same for ~/Library/Caches). Problem solved! I've had other problems as well in Finder so perhaps this will fix this as well. I'm curious as to why using Onyx to clear the User caches didn't clear these as well, but anyway, from what I've read online it seems like getting rid of these two folders is safe. Also, Time Machine never backs up ~/Library/Caches (but it does back up /Library/Caches), so that's reassuring.
In addition, while this post was made in 2003, it still applied to my situation and this was what convinced me to clear my Caches folders.
Best Answer
I've checked the .bash_profile file and found this lines:
It looks like I made a mistake when I ran console command during GO installation. I've removed this '>' symbols and now everything is ok.