OS X :: Deleting Preference Folder / Files List On Leopard 10.5.8?
Jan 21, 2010
I have a June 2009 17" 2.8 UMBP which has been driving me mad with near constant beach balls! I run no intensive programmes at all - just emails & surfing the net!
I originally used migration assistant from a Tiger MBP to this one & read that I may have corrupted Tiger P-Lists transferred over to my Leopard One. I would like to ask, how can I get rid of/delete my current preferences list to see if that fixes the problem - it did with another person who also transferred from Tiger to Leopard with Migration Assistant!
Will I lose anything by deleting the Preferences Folder/Files? I think I read somewhere that OS X automatically replaces them with current versions if that is correct? Ae Preference Lists taken care of too when deleting the folder/files?
I am a novice so please treat me like a 4 year old who needs very step by step instructions!
I want to know If I can delete items in my downloads folder. I HAVE DONE NOTHING specific to these files. The majority of them are files I opened as email attachments. NO, I haven't moved them or saved them. NO I haven't imported them to itunes. NO they aren't files ending in .dmg. Almost ALL are pdf. On another post regarding this question the chosen answer was, "you can delete from downloads folder without affecting the applications, so you CAN'T delete them without any problems". This statement is contradicting
Should it not have been worded, "YES you CAN delete without any problems"? And it didn't indicate if it included pdf files. ( i believe they were discussing copies of apps or programs in the downloads folder).
I just want to know what will happen to these pdf files. Do I need to move 229 files IF i want to preserve them somewhere on my Mac, or are they already saved elsewhere as a pdf?
I am using Image Capture 4.0 to download photos. When I plug in my storage device (camera, SD card, USB stick, etc.) Image Capture opens and along with the option to select the download folder, all the names of the folders (grayed out) I have used since I first started using the computer appear. These are folders I no longer use, but to get to the actual area or folder that I want to download to, I have to scroll past a couple hunderd previous, grayed out folder names. Once I get to the actual desired folder, I can download to it. But, those annoying, old folder names still appear on the hard drive.
I've come here because I searched for the names of these .plist files on the net and got no results whatsover - ZERO. Drive Genius 3 picks out the following .plist files as corrupt, on a fairly regular basis. When I delete them, they come back pretty quickly, and the first I hear about it is when DG3 points them out to me again - only days later:
/Users/Kev/Library/Preferences/com.Incoradial.Stomatic.plist: Unexpected character at line 1
/Users/kev/Library/Preferences/com.Datawise.Mousquetaire.plist: Unexpected character at line 1
I am not experiencing any strange behaviour that I could link to the presence of these files, I'm just curious at to where they orginate from and why they get picked up as possibly corrupt so quickly?Like I say a quick search on the net brings up nothing at all for the names of these files. Sometimes there are about 3 more - but they all have names that I cannot relate to any applications I have on the Mac?I had noticed some wierd looking preference files before when using MainMenu and seeing the list as it was processing the batch tasks - but never got round to investigating it properly.
Info: Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), RME Fireface 400/Logic 9.1.6
I just installed "Automatic" to my "other" section of my preference pane. I no longer want it. Using a mouse, i was able to right click and remove it from my pane, but in Spotlight, it still seems like its listed under system pref. how do i get rid of it all. Currently, if i select it in Spotlight, i am prompted to re-install to the pref pane.
In my Applications Folder I have an alias Applications Folder.When I deleted the alias folder it wiped out all my applications on my hard drive.Does anyone know how I can delete the alias folder without deleting all my Applications?
When I try to delete duplicate names and addresses from my Skype contact list I get the message that this has to be done by deleting these names from my Mac contact list. How is this done?
I read that if you reinstall the combo 10.5.8 twice . That it would fix the preference files. Well when i installed it the first time everything went ok When it came to restart that worked as it should. But when I did it the second time it would not restart. It seemed to freeze I had to manually shut the computer off and restart it that way.
I was scanning some pictures today when I noticed that the icon for the folder I call 'Work', which contains all my documents, pictures ect yak and blah, wasn't on the desktop, so I temporarily parked my images in Dropbox and went to look for it. It just wasn't there. When I put in the names of specific folders into Spotlight, they weren't coming up. I do have Time Machine, and went back until I found the missing folder - it seemed to have been absent since yesterday morning - and restored all the items.
What could have caused this to happen? My computer has been acting strangely recently; a couple of weeks back it didn't want to spring into life at all, wasn't booting up - and then seemed fine on the third attempt. A couple of days ago the mouse suddenly stopped working, too, only to reappear with no problem a few minutes later.
The files for the web site for each user url... are place in the "Sites" folder for that user. What folder has the files for the computer's web site url...
I've got a folder called Blanks/ABC FM/SMS/Other and when I compress it I get two zip files of the same size: one with the correct name and the other called Archive.zip. When I remove the space I only get the Archive.zip. When I remove the slashes I get the correct zip file only.
Friends, I'm new to Macs (4 months now), I need to know if any Mac EXPERTS have a way of avoiding plist files getting corrupted. Are there things I can do that will prevent me from ever getting these corruptions? What I do for right now is run OnyX on fully automated with all maintenance scripts enabled about once a month, I always shutdown because I used to get iTunes crashes after allowing sleep, and I lastly run Disk Utility every week whether I've installed anything or not (just to make sure for permissions errors).
Is there anything else I could be doing? Also, by doing all these things, have you EXPERTS found that you NEVER have corrupt plists, or is it inevitable in Leopard?
I'm not talking about a tool like Onyx, which is "excellent". Definitely the best, most simplest maintenance tool/utility.app for the Mac.I'm talking a simple tool for searching, editing and deleting both specific .plist files and cache files on an app-by-app basis. Is there one?I know of PrefEdit, but that is only for .plist (preference) files, and leaves out cache files:
I need, well desperately want; one that does both.Yeah I could use AppZapper, but I would prefer something that is designed for this specific purpose. Anyone?
I have a MacBook 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB running OS X 10.5.6. Had it for over a year, no problems until tonight. I was having trouble connecting to a printer via Airport and rebooted the MacBook. When it loaded, my desktop photo was gone, my customized dock had reverted to the first-run configuration and my entire Documents folder was empty. The capacity info at the bottom of the Finder window reassured me that my files were still there. I restored them to an external HD with Data Rescue, then ran the repair utilities from Disk Utility using my Leopard disk. Rebooted with no change.
Then, attempted to reinstall Leopard with my original disk and after I selected the language, it told me that Leopard can't be installed on this computer. About this Mac still shows version 10.5.6. All apps are intact and boot up but they all boot in first-run mode. Entourage has lost my mail database and my multiple email accounts/passwords/instructions. I've been on Macs for 20 years and never run into anything like this. How do I straighten this out? I'm willing to put in the hours to reinstate passwords, preferences, etc., but I really want to know what's behind this in case it happens again.
I need to remove ALL Keynote '09 preference files at a Global Level, without fully uninstalling. what files need manually pulled to completely set Keynote on 10.7.x to full default?
I'm downloading a series of video files. I click on each link and they start downloading. I might have several that are all downloading at once. While they download I go on to work on something else. However, when each file finishes downloading, the program I use to view the video opens and I have to take time to close it and go back to work.
I am trying to set up a folder action to do the following... When a file is added to the "images" folder a new dated subfolder would automatically be created, and the file would be moved to this new dated subfolder.
Here's what I have so far (which I'm sure is way off base)
1) Folder action receives files and folders added to "Images"
2) Filter finder items - Find files where ALL of the following is true: Kind is ANY
3) New Folder - Name is "_" Where: "Images"
4) Add Date or Time to Finder Item Names: Add Date to folder name
5) Move Finder Items: This is the step that I'm stuck on. I don't know how indicate the newly created folder in step 3
Another question I have is how to make automator check to see if there's already a subfolder with the current date and put the file in that subfolder instead of creating a new subfolder with a duplicate name.
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
finding my preference files in the library. Now that I have found them, I notice that they are different than they were under Snow Leopard. Do I still trash some of them if I think they might be corrupted because the app is not working well or is that no longer necessary?
how created an unused network that is showing up on the list of networks in the building. i need to delete it. I went to System Preferences, then Network, then Advanced but the next screen befuddled me as there was no "Wi-Fi".
I have been using Macs for years, but I haven't got into particulars. Anyways, I wanted to know if I delete the contents of the Downloads folder, will it adversely affect the files that are actually stored in there. Meaning, will it delete them from other areas of my computer. I have random powerpoints, pictures, word documents, music, etc. in the downloads folder. It's reaching almost a 1000 files! I noticed that the music is in my iTunes music folder and some of the documents are stored in the documents folder.
I have copied my iTunes folder on a NAS hard disk. Now I want to delete it (as it interferes with my sonos music library). However, I get a message that This cannot be done because I have "no permission to assess some of the items".
I purchased a mac book air recently for business purposes. i download a lot of files and i like to organize my folders and files. i noticed when i move the files from download folder and then delete it from download folder the file in another folder also gets deleted. what i am trying to say is when i delete my files from download folder it automatically deletes that file everywhere! how can i fix this ?
(no matter if i copy or drag the file , if i delete from download folder it automatically delete the file everywhere on my computer)
I got some good advice about deleting dmg files so I thought I'd ask about the Previous Systems folder on the HD. I recently tried to delete too much and had to reboot from the disk. It put a folder named "Previous Systems" on the HD and its taking up 7.72 GB. I'm back up again and up to date. Everything seems to be working. I know I screwed up before so I'm asking here before I delete too much again.
