A PHP script for removing Thumbs.db, .DS_Store, MacOS hidden and other annoying files +

Tired of explaining to others how to turn off thumbnail caching on Windows, how to install TinkerTool on Mac? Deleted your fair share of those damn files manually? Me too! Never again!

/**
* housekeeping.php
*
* Removes various annoying hidden and/or useless files leftover from
* different people doing different stuff on the filesystem using
* various OSes.
*/

Source: housekeeping.php (5KB, .phps file)

When and how you invoke the function (cron or scheduled tasks, manually, before/after/during some scm process, on login/logout…) is up to you.

Questions, comments, etc — use the form below. Enjoy nuking those files.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Misc, Todo, Uncategorized, Webdev. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

13 Responses to “A PHP script for removing Thumbs.db, .DS_Store, MacOS hidden and other annoying files”

  1. Boris Strahija | April 11th, 2008 at 3:49 pm +

    Thnx, works like a charm :)

  2. syed | June 27th, 2008 at 4:17 pm +

    I have downloaded the housekeeping.php file how to run this in windows it asking me program to open

    help plz

    Syed

  3. zytzagoo | June 28th, 2008 at 9:09 am +

    @syed:
    this is an excerpt from the comments from the file you downloaded:

    * @usage rdir_cleanup(‘.’); // just a ‘test-run’ in the current working dir
    * @usage rdir_cleanup(‘.’, true); // nuke everything from the cwd and further below

    So, housekeeping.phps just gives you a function, that you can use in your own php script, that is yet to be writtten (and ran after that) by you. To do that on a default Windows box, you’ll probably have to do all or some of these steps:

    step 1: download and install php so you can run php scripts on your computer
    step 2: open go to the folder where you saved housekeeping.phps and rename it to housekeeping.php
    step 3: open housekeeping.php with a text editor and add one extra line to the bottom (call the rdir_cleanup() function with parameters that suit you)
    step 4: fire up command prompt (Win+R, type in cmd, hit enter), go to the folder where housekeeping.php is, and now finally type “php housekeeping.php” (without quotes) in the command-line — that runs the script.

    Steps 2-4 could maybe be avoided by installing php with a windows installer that automagically assigns .php files to the php interpreter, so you could maybe just double-click .php files in windows explorer to run them. Haven’t tried it tho.

  4. Mario Kostelac | November 12th, 2008 at 9:01 pm +

    Very useful! Thanks

  5. suk | November 24th, 2009 at 8:32 am +

    Could I upload this to my shared webhost and run it? I compressed a bunch of files/folders from my Mac, uploaded and extracted the zip archive online, and now my site’s folders are littered with .DS_Store files..

    Thanks!

  6. zytzagoo | November 24th, 2009 at 8:52 am +

    @suk: Yep. Just read comment #3 and act accordingly. Standard disclaimers still apply :)

  7. suk | November 24th, 2009 at 9:00 am +

    awesome.. it worked. just a tiny suggestion, to output a br tag after each line so it’s easier to read the output. :)

    great script, and thanks again!

  8. zytzagoo | November 24th, 2009 at 9:24 am +

    @suk: Thanks for the comments. New version of the script is uploaded to the link above (http://zytzagoo.net/code/housekeeping/housekeeping.phps), this one should output <br/> tags if you’re running it through a web server.

  9. Aidan | February 11th, 2011 at 12:44 pm +

    Brilliant, Client security scans were coming back with ._DS’s. I was freaking out at the thought of going through 500+ folders on the server and deteling each list of invisibles separately.
    Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

  10. David | December 2nd, 2014 at 12:15 am +

    Hey,

    Looks like just the script I need.

    “Out of the box” does this scan and delete all the .DS_Store thumbs.db files recursively without having to edit the php file?

  11. zytzagoo | December 2nd, 2014 at 9:37 am +

    @David: The file itself only provides a PHP function named rdir_cleanup(). You’ll need to call the function yourself (and provide the adequate parameters).

  12. David | February 12th, 2015 at 2:06 pm +

    @ZYTZAGOO

    Can you give me an example.
    I’m running a Linux web server, I’ve uploaded the file to my server’s root, but how can I just run it to clear all the files recursively?

    Dave.

  13. David | February 12th, 2015 at 2:14 pm +

    @Zytagoo

    Scratch my last comment.

    It’s literally a case of adding dir_cleanup(‘.’ true); to the end of the file to do this.

    Thanks for the Script