Fuckin thumbs.db and lost+found hiding on every USB stick.
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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Seriously fuck thumbs.db anywhere it can be found.
THIS IS WHY NTFS HAS ALTERNATE DATA STREAMS, USE THEM YOU FUCKERS YOU CREATED IT.
EXPLAIN HOW
Alternate data streams look like normal files but with an appended identifier.
For example test.txt:stream1 is an alternate data stream of test.txt. Move or copy the file and the ADS goes with it.
They can be created like other files (“echo > test.txt:stream1”)
You can see them with “dir /r” at the command line.
You can even have an alternate data stream with no corresponding file. In my opinion this is what thumbs.db should have been.
you are shitting me, that's so cool. This command only works for NTFS?
It works, and yes only on NTFS… but many applications may not be able to open these “files”.
It’s actually sort of a weird historical thing, goes back to the roots of Windows NT in VMS and also compatibility with Mac OS (classic) and its “resource forks”
OMG you're taking me back to ResEdit
Back 20+ years ago I used alternate data streams to his my collection of files (the ones you find online as a teenager) behind a text file. You can shove anything you want (I think) in them, even including extensions to make sure it opened in the right program (i.e. test.txt:malware.msi).
We use Btrfs not NTFS here
Yes well you’re not wrong.
Although I use ext4.
For Linux, the equivalent is Extended Attributes, although they come with significant limitations.
Easiest fix, change the folder view to another, like "list", then back and it won't be locked anymore. Might take a second or two, but will unlock.
Not sure what you’re talking about. “Locked”?
You mean list? Click these icons and change the folder view from icons to something else, like "list" or "details", then thumbs.db can be deleted without windows bitching.
You can also change under View menu at the top.
No I mean “locked”.
I don’t care about windows bitching about these files, I am offended that it shits them (and “desktop.ini”) all over everywhere.
It’s a total hack, and pathetic for a company the size of Microsoft.
Or as my parents call them, "A virus!"
I have lost+found on my Linux drives... what am I doing wrong?
Nothing.
If you run fsck (filesystem check), it will look for blocks of data that look like files, but have no actual filename attached. Simplified, that can happen as a result of unexpected shutdowns (like kernel panic) or IO conflicts (where one process deletes the file but the other writes data to where the file used to be). If fsck finds such "lost files", it will put them in lost+found on the respective volume.
If you have trouble with missing files after a crash, it might be worth looking for them there. Otherwise, it probably doesn't matter.
What drives me batty about thumbs.db is that on a modern high end machine with an nvme drive it's not meaningfully faster then just regenerating thumbnails on demand every time, and in fact can be slower under some circumstances. Yet there's no "I don't need this turn it off" option.
also now that we have jpegxl you can just load the first bit of data for a thumbnail, lmao
What about remote drves though?
For whatever insane windows-y reason, having a thumbs.db file on a network share is one of those slower scenarios for me. Which is odd because you'd expect that to be the kind of situation where it's actually useful.
Meh, that's nothing - just look at the multitude of directories forced upon any storage device you plug into something running Android.
Isn't it just SD cards it automatically prepares to use as an extension of the main filesystem by automatically mirroring the default filestructure onto it?
I usually only plug in SD cards, so I finally just grabbed my SSD to check - same thing happened. What kind of storage devices were you thinking it wouldn't happen to?
Well, I thought it only did it to inserted micro-SD cards, not external storage, but then, I never did plug external storage into a phone, so I guess I was wrong.
thumbs.db says hello
Don’t come anywhere near us
Wait until they cross paths with the ._DS_Store abomination.
What's that? It rings a bell and I've been wondering all thread whether I misremembered the correct name.
The most reliable fingerprint.
Hahahaha that's actually hilarious
I’m such a Mac user that I don’t even get it. I am simultaneously laughing at myself and embarrassed.
MacOS create these directories to store metadata. But because it starts with a dot, you don’t normally see it.
macOS only does this on network shares or external storage that’s formatted in neither HFS+ nor APFS, Apple‘s file system formats.
Right, so anything that might be used with other machines.
ZIP files created with macOS‘ file manager Finder can also contain DS_Store files.
Yes, the idea is to support macOS features on non native file systems.
If you want to look it up, some of this goes back to HFS, a file system with a resource fork and data fork. It allows you to do pretty cool stuff.
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Huh? I've seen it on the git untracked files list on APFS drives, I'm pretty sure.
In fact I know some companies just add it to .gitignore for that reason
To add to this, it does not do this on drives/folders added to the indexing exclusion list
Depending on how you interact with your computer, and when you started being a Mac user, I’m not surprised.
Starting at macOS 10.12 16A238m, Finder will not display
.DS_Storefiles (even if you randefaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YESin Terminal to show hidden system files).
Apple treats it's users like children, i would feel so not respected. Yeah you bought the machine but don't worry your pretty little head with these confusing files
That's cause they're hidden from you. The file does not show up on MacOS, even if you enable showing hidden files.
Am too poor to afford mac, what this mean?
It’s a folder that macOS will leave on usb sticks with meta data and stuff I think
Idk I delete it on sight.
Very cool, I'm still kinda confused why .DS_Store is the identifier for such a folder but still cool Thanks
It's a file that is never visible on Mac systems, it stands for Desktop Service. It just saves stuff like your zoom settings for the specific folder, metadata for the files in the folder etc
It is automatically generated in every single folder you access on a Mac system that isn't a native Apple file system. So for example a Windows formatted USB stick, or a network share.
It is however visible on non-mac systems as a file called ".DS_Store"
On Unix and Unix-like systems when a file or directory name starts with a . its hidden by default.
This convention is maintained in the UI for MacOS so you don't see the .DS_Store directory unless you ask to show hidden files.
Apparently not even then, in the case of .DS_Store. Another comment quoted from Wikipedia:
Starting at macOS 10.12 16A238m, Finder will not display
.DS_Storefiles (even if you randefaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YESin Terminal to show hidden system files).
On any non Mac native filesystem I think. Anything that MacOS can read but isn't the original filesystem (it used to be HFS, a long time ago, I have no idea what it is nowadays) will be peppered with those metadata files, disk, floppy, thumb drive, whatever.
It’s a good thing I never created OS file systems because I would have balls.chin files everywhere. Well, the truth is that someone would have forked it just to change that, then I would have raged and abandoned the project, then a competent maintainer would have grabbed it. What a world.
.Spotlight-V100 says hello!