OS X V10.6 Snow Leopard :: Is It Ok To Delete The Contents Of /private/var/folders/*
Feb 23, 2012
I'm doing some major maintenance of my Macbook at the moment, and so far that has included running Onyx and Cocktail, and I'm not in the process of defragmenting files and free space with TechTool.In the process of defragmenting files, a few files called "daily.out" cropped up as fragmented and large. They were contained inside a folder called /private/var/folders.Â
On inspecting this folder, it would seem that all of its contents are subfolders with "cache" or "tmp" in them. I assume these are all temporary files and caches, using my incredible genius discerning skills. Â
Question is, can I safely just trash the entire contents of this /folders/ directory? Some of these caches and logs have grown to gigantic sized, the entire folder is about 200MB at this stage, and they remain even though I used Onyx and Cocktail to clear out caches.
exactly what is this directory used for and which caches are they? They're obviously not the same caches as you find in /Library/Caches or ~/Library/Caches/, so what's the difference? Can they safely be gotten rid of? When running cocktail, one of the options is to ignore the caches of audio units and such, I work often with DAWs so I was just wondering, what good does a "cache" do for these plugins, and why wouldn't you want to clear them from time to time?Â
EDIT: Also I did a full and complete backup of my entire HD using Carbon Copy before I started my maintenance session so I'm ok with taking risks, if there's a slight possibility of this causing problems. I'd just like to know what might happen first.
Still think i have a hack or am being remotely accessed. Found a private folder - hidden. the name should be my name - who is wheel or system - usually in this area it is my name?Â
would it be useful for you guys for me to show the contents of everything in here to see if here is a hack?
would macscan be able to find this hidden priviate file and find if there was something malicious?
I'm trying to delete a bunch of unwanted files that take up a lot of space, and I'm finding this file that is 2 gigs, which labeled: private/var/vm/sleepimage, but I can't access the file or delete it. (I'm using a program called GrandPerspective which visually represents how memory is being used).
i have Macbook pro running on Mac OS X, Snow Leopard ver. 10.6.8 . I am not able to delete rename and modify my desktop folder and files. even through the admin account and all previleges i cant move them to Thrash. as i try to delete them it asks for password and then no action takes place. i have even used repair permissions from disk utility, used the terminal window method but nothing happened. the "get info " shows read and write permision but still i cannot even rename them there.
I have some files on my desktop right now that I would like to secure from wondering eyes. Other people use my Macbook Pro from time to time and I don't want anyone to read these documents. Is there a way to create a folder/file that requires a password to gain entry to view the contents of this folder/file?
I've set some share folders, from windows xp I can open the folders (even create files) and see the child folders but when I try to open them I get access denied.
I'm using snow leopard 10.6 on a mac mini, can anyone tell me what I need to do to fix this?
I have dropbox and configured it to show the icon on the tray over the left of my day/time. When I click onto the folder via Finder, I see the folder icon. The "Info" for this folder should allow me to read/write to the folder. However, when I ask to see the contents, I do not get a listing of the files within the folder. I am very frustrated since I have been struggling to resolve this configuration issue out on my own. It is most likely 'user issue' which led me here. However, I am at my ropes end.
I was upgrading from Tiger to Snow Leopard (I asked a worker in the Apple store and he assured me it was okay to do so) and about 15 minutes into the installation I got a message saying "Unable to install. Please retry". Then when I retried it says "The contents of this disk can't be changed. Mac OS X couldn't be installed on this disk."
I have a black MBP and it is Intel based and I fit the system requirements
i just received a DVD with a video on it.When I put the DVD in the drive, I can see a folder with a "No Entry" sign at the lower right corner.When I double click on the folder, following message comes up:The folder DVD_RTAV can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents" Under Info, it does not show any size.Under Sharing and Permission, it says: You have no access. I enabled "Shared Folder" but nothing chanded. It does not even say, it is password protected, otherwise it would ask me for a password. How can I open that folder?Would there be any software able to read it>I have no idea, what the video file format is, because I can not read anything.I tried it on the Mac Pro and also on my MBP, so it can not be a drive problem.I am using Snow Leopard 10.6.8?
Info: Mac Pro 8 Core, Mac Book Pro 15.4, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Black Magic Extreme HD, 10 GB RAM, 4 TB HDD
I was moving a folder (Beggs 5/12) from my desktop to my HD, and accidentally dropped it in the shaded area at the top of the HD when you are viewing your HD contents. I can't seem to remove it, only click on it to see contents.
I setup MS Entorage on the mac working with a Exchange Account. I am able to see all Contacts, Calendar, and Tasks. However, although I can see the folders in Tasks, I cannot see the contents of the folders! I get the following message "There are no messages in this folder".
I need to return company Macbook Air and I want to be sure all my private data are permanently deleted and unrecoverable. I know it is not enough to simply delete them, so please, can someone suggest a more secure way? Should I format my Air and if so, how can I do it?
I just bought a new iMac with OS X Mavericks, and when I transferred my data from my old iMac with Snow Leopard, all my mailboxes appeared, but they were empty. How can I get back my saved emails?
I would like to create an archive of important application installers and I will sync the contents between two systems MacPro and Macbook Pro.Â
I need to pull the names of the application/developers from somewhere so I figured I would use the Application Support directory.Â
So I need a way to copy this directories folder structure without any of the file contents. Is there an easy way to do this. I found a post with an Automator script but the link is dead [URL]
I also found this post that refers to doing it in terminal but since it is the app support directory I am wary to do this as I am not familiar with terminal at all and I am not clear on what exactly to write in the old_dir / new_dir section. I figure it would be something like this /Library/Application Support but I dont want to make a mistake.Â
Here is the Terminal command:
cd old_dir find . -type d -depth -print | cpio -pd new_dir Â
When I access another Mac via Airport (using Safari and typing in an address such as afp://192.168.1.3), I can access the other Mac by typing in the password, its disk will appear on my Desktop, but a small red dash appears in User folders such as Desktop, and if I try to open the folder it says I don't have permission.
I am trying to speed up Re-Labeling all my metadata for every song in my library. Basically I need to create a workflow first, but I am having some troubles on how I should be doing it in Automater.
Example filename: "forrestaveryderty_driftinonby_flapjack.m4a"Â find all filenames that start with the same word before the First underscore (_)Â create a folder with that same wordÂ
copy files with the same word (BEFORE THE FIRST UNDERSCORE) to their corresponding folder name I then can use Media Rage to select the certain folder and and change the artist name all at once. and I would like it to do that with every file at one time.Â
again...Â
1: Find files with the same name before the first "underscore"
2: Create a a folder for every different name found (before the first underscore)
3: Copy found files (with same name before the first underscore) to the folder with the same name
We have six mac computers in our office and we keep our files on a network drive that is accessed wirelessly. One of our folders has 40 or so client project folders inside it. I've discovered that on my iMac, about ten of these folders have lost their original status when I booted up this morning (they were all originals yesterday) and are now aliases demanding to be fixed or deleted. No one has copied them, moved them, and some haven't even been opened since April. I've done some research online and it seems this problem often gets blamed on moving a file or copying a file and the file/folder itself is written off as dead. But the extremely crazy thing is on the other 5 computers in this office, they can access the files as originals (which they are). I had one of my coworkers make a duplicate of one of my aliased folders, which she did, and then I was able to open it and use the contents. But about an hour later, it was suddenly an alias again and I no longer had access. We've had this problem on more than one computer in the office, but never the same folder at the same time. It can always be accessed from somewhere, so what causes one computer to suddenly view an original folder as an alias, while another computer can view that same folder as an orignal.
I downloaded pictures from a friends camera onto my iMac. The camera was removed before I selected "eject camera". That has resulted in two empty folders on my desktop that I cannot move or delete.Â
I just upgraded to SL. Now I got crazy on my Trash. Whenever and Whatever I drag a file, a movie, a pic, everything, it will not move the the trash. Instead system warms me "This item will be detect immediately, you can't undo this action." And the item is detect directly. I always have a empty trash.
I really prefer Windows way of sorting a folder, first folders and then files, is there a way to do it in Snow Leopard? I have done this: [URL:...] But that doest work for me in SL.
I'm pretty new to Mac and I'm currently quite confused about how to set default settings for all my files and folders in Snow Leopard. Specifically, I would like for all the icons in Finder windows (and preferably also in the "Documents" stack in the Dock) to automatically be displayed as large icons and also for all my files and folders to be arranged by Kind - all of this in "List View". In "Icon View", all of these things do work (except for in the "Documents" stack in the Dock).
In "List View", when I select "Use as Defaults" in the "View Options" panel (View>Show View Options), it does not seem to apply my settings automatically to all my folders and files. Likewise, when I right-click in a Finder window and select "Arrange by > Kind", it only seems to arrange by Kind in that particular folder.
I have read several other threads, but none of the solutions seem to work for me. One thread suggested that I hold "alt" after I have right-clicked so that the option "KEEP arranged by" shows up, but this does not seem to happen in "List View".
We have a user with a large number of folders of saved mail stored locally (on my mac). I haven't counted the number of folders in the list in Mail, but the last 6, alphabetically, do not display in the list of folders. I can, by going into ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes (I think it's in Mailboxes) see the missing folders and even open the messages in them, the folders simply don't display in the Mail app (v4.5).Â
Does anyone know if there is (there appears to be) some limit to the number of folders Mail can display? If so, is there some workaround to get it to display them so the user can access his mail through Mail app? why these particular folders are not showing up.Â
It seems like it must be a limit issue since it's not chronological (i.e., they aren't the most recent folders created) but alphabetical (they would, if displayed, be the last 6 folders in the list).
My photos are organized in folders according to the week they were taken, and I want to keep it that way. But if I want to pull up just the photos that have my friend Brian in them, how can I do that? First off iPhoto is NOT an option. I have used several versions of the iLife suite starting with Tiger, then moving on to Leopard and (currently) Snow Leopard. And the whole iLife suite is riddled with bugs to the point where I do not want to touch them as they are completely unreliable. DVD player crashes and freezes randomly, and falsely claims DVDs are damaged when they are brand new. Now I just use VLC, and my DVD movies play perfectly every time. Something I could almost never get DVD Player to do.
I have tried using iWeb, but after a few "undos" and some editing, my links no longer work, and files get dropped for no reason. I have tried tagging photos in iPhoto, and using one Smart Folder for each tagged category. It all works great for a while, but before long, newly tagged photos stop being added into the Smart Folders, and it defeats the whole purpose. Not to mention that iPhoto creates a huge file, and wastes time identifying faces, which is an undesirable feature I can't seem to turn off. I am guessing the whole problem with the iLife suit is that the library coding gets super easily corrupted if you make changes (and I am not even touching any of the files outside of iPhoto, iWeb, etc.) I can't even make aliases to the folders and organize them that way for viewing in screensaver, because Snow Leopard's screen saver can't open the photos in an alias folder. I'm NOT going to duplicate all my folders with different names and arrange them by category. That isn't organizing, that is duplicating, and completely wasting tons of file space. Is there any program available I can get to replace iPhoto so I can cross-reference my photos into multiple categories? And is there a screen saver program I can use to make my own screen savers that can pull files from aliases, or some other referencing system?Â
Is there a patch I can get so that the default screensaver will open photos from an alias in Snow Leopard, the way it always used to? Why is it so difficult to deal with what should be simple, basic programs and file organization? I love my MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard, and I love the professional programs I run on it such as Adobe and Maya, but why is the first party software complete garbage? I know I don't sound like it at the moment, but I'm normally a polite person, I am just really frustrated right now. Just tired of banging my head trying to find ways to get around and outsmart the default programs on this OS, which has been futile, I might add.
Info: 13" MacBook Pro 8GB RAM 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, iMacG5 with iSight 2.5 GB RAM
