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Clock icon in Finder window

Cave Man

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Original poster
Feb 12, 2007
7,160
350
Neander Valley, Germany; just outside Duesseldorf
I have a new Western Digital USB3 external hard drive that I copied files to (High Sierra 10.13.6) and several folders and files have this clock-like icon next to them as in the attached screen shot. It's been this way for several days now. I don't think I've ever seen this before so I hope someone can tell me what it is.

clocker.png
 
It's on a disk-image file (.dmg), so my first guess, absent any other info, is that it indicates the amount of data in use, similar to how Disk Utility shows the amount of data for disks.

This is supported somewhat by the indicated size of the .dmg file, which appears as 549KB. If the max capacity is multiple MB or GB, then 549KB is only a small fraction of that. Thus, the circle shows only a tiny sliver of "dark" (used) and a much larger portion of "light" (free).

If this icon appears on any other file types, or on folders, please post a screenshot. I based my guess on what's shown, which is a single .dmg file.
 
I think it is the progress indicator of the copy action. Seen from your 'clock' it is just started to copy and not nearly finished.
 
I agree, it's the progress indicator. Sometimes I have seen these persist if a copy fails or is cancelled, which is just a bug of some sort. If you restart your Mac I think it will go away.
 
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Yes, it's a progress indicator for the copy process. There's some minor bug that does not remove the progress indicator, even though the file copy is complete. I have seen it before, and discovered how to remove the progress clock. Unfortunately, my discovery was accidental, and I don't remember what I did (sorry!)... But the clock indicator does not prevent use of the file, just a visual quirk. You can choose to ignore it, after checking that the file size appears to be correct.
 
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OK, thanks much. I just unmounted and remounted the drive the little clocks are still there. Really weird that I've never seen this before. A check of a few folders reveals the expected number of files are in each, so I believe the files have copied just fine.
 
I work with (literally) millions of files every week and lots of moving/copying is involved. I've seen the little clocks after some big file copies before, but they always went away after I shut down the computer and started it up again in the morning. Anyway, it is clearly just a bug.
 
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The progress indicator (in your case) is probably the progress of the files being synced to iCloud. I only guess that because you've said the files have been fully copied to the drive, so it's not that.
 
MacGizmo said:
The progress indicator (in your case) is probably the progress of the files being synced to iCloud. I only guess that because you've said the files have been fully copied to the drive, so it's not that.
Click to expand...
I just looked at my iCloud "drive" and none of these files are on it. The copy was done on Tuesday, so it's been 5 days since then.

I will do the reboot of this computer when I get a chance today.
 
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Cave Man said:
I just looked at my iCloud "drive" and none of these files are on it. The copy was done on Tuesday, so it's been 5 days since then.
Click to expand...

MacGizmo said:
The progress indicator (in your case) is probably the progress of the files being synced to iCloud.
Click to expand...

Boyd01 said:
However, I have never used iCloud and have seen this multiple times before.
Click to expand...


What is the copy destination? Is iCloud drive enabled? I frequently see the progress wheel when copying files to an iCloud replicated folder. Interesting that it could happen on a simple copy.
 
I don't recall the details, but am sure it involved copying many gigabytes of data between external disks. I work with lots of big files (many that are over 100gb) and also often copy/move folders containing millions of files. As I said, I've never used iCloud drive.
 
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