I preface this article by noting that my most extensive experience with a computer running MacOS was figuring out how to replace Mac with Bodhi Linux on Victor V. Gurbo’s 2007 MacBook. For reasons that I have addressed indirectly, this will remain the case. Because I am not a Mac-user, I am often late to learn about certain Mac behaviors. I have to use Dropbox for my day job as a legal writer and researcher for an immigration law firm. I often noted .DS_Store files in shared Dropbox directories. I had no idea what they were until I came across this report from Bleeping Computer:
Google Drive was seen flagging “.DS_Store’ files generated by macOS file systems as a violation of its copyright infringement policy.
What is a “.DS_Store” file?
‘.DS_Store’ files are automatically generated by macOS’ Finder application to store custom attributes and metadata such as icon information and background image location. This information helps Finder render the layout as per the user’s preferences.
Mac users who do not use cloud storage may never notice these “dot files.” (My home directory on my first Manjaro Linux install became a bit messy before I grasped the concept of dot files.)
On macOS systems, .DS_Store files remain typically hidden within Finder. In fact, the file is analogous to the hidden desktop.ini and thumbs.db files seen occasionally by Windows users (if their Explorer settings permit showing ‘hidden’ files).
Ah yes, the thumbs.db file that triggers a notice in Dropbox whenever I try to upload files from the office computer via a remote connection (aside, I hate Teamviewer).
Google says it does not know what is causing Google Drive to occasionally flag innocuous DS_Store files as copyright infringements.
Because this Google Drive-MacOS issue does not affect me at all, I have no scalding hot takes to share. Instead, I will note that it was also through my day job’s Dropbox that I learned of the existence of the .pages format. Why is that a thing? Do people really use it?