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I found a file with .DS_Store extension in one of my drives. How did it get there?

My Operating System is Windows 7 64-bit and to the best of my knowledge I never accessed an Apple computer nor was accessed by one.

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  • 5
    Chances are you had that drive plugged into an Apple computer or an Apple computer remotely accessed that drive.
    – kobaltz
    May 22, 2014 at 17:40
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    No. There has been never any connection between my computer and apple computer or any Macintosh OS.
    – Emad
    May 22, 2014 at 17:42
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    When you googled it, and read the first result (from Wikipedia), what didn't you understand?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    May 22, 2014 at 17:45
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    In Wikipedia I found out that this file is related to Mac OS. Since There is Windows Operating System in my machine I got wondered!
    – Emad
    May 22, 2014 at 17:49
  • That same wonder has brought me here, thank you for asking this question!
    – Callat
    Feb 19, 2018 at 16:54

1 Answer 1

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That file is a proprietary Mac/OSX system file that holds attributes/meta-data about the folder it resides in.

These often appear in file shares that are accessed over the network by a Mac user; but that's not the only way you can get them. You may have gotten it in an archive (ie: a Zip file perhaps) you picked up someplace, which was originally created on a Mac.

I run into these all the time in archives we get from our graphic designers.

You're safe to just delete it.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.DS_Store

For additional information on preventing them, perhaps check out these SU questions and answers (and others like them):

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  • Thanx my friend. The problem is that there' no relation between my computer and Mac/OSX and also there's no Zip or compressed file in root of my Drive That I extract it.
    – Emad
    May 22, 2014 at 18:00
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    That's where they come from, but if you don't know how it got there and you swear nothing has ever been done to put it there, then we can't tell you where you picked it up from, and we probably can't convince you it's harmless. If you are really worried it's an infection or something, then format and reinstall Windows. :)
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    May 22, 2014 at 18:04
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    If you are using git (or git for Windows) you can add .DS_Store to the .gitignore file so it won't get checked in.
    – Jesse Chisholm
    May 31, 2018 at 18:14

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