Why .**** files show up on USB drive when plug into PC?

[mac_in_tosh]

I have a USB drive that is formatted ExFat so it can be used on Mac and PC, and it has done so without issue until now. Now, after using it on the MAC and plugging it into the PC a bunch of extraneous files show up with names starting with "."

What are these and why are they starting to show up now? Thanks.

 

[Fishrrman]

I believe they are invisible files (hence, they begin with a "." which makes them invisible when using the Mac OS) that the finder creates for "housekeeping" purposes.

What are the files named?

I'll guess that when connected to a PC, the files "are there", but do nothing and harm nothing.
You can either ignore them, or do a search on the PC and delete them.

 

[Weaselboy]

USBclean by SweetP Productions

remove invisible files from your USB thumb drives

usbclean.sweetpproductions.com

Normal macOS hidden files. You can use this app to get rid of them.

 

[chown33]

The files you're seeing are the "._" files described here:

AppleSingle and AppleDouble formats - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's how macOS stores things like resource-forks, xattrs, and Finder info on non-native file-systems.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

I'll guess that when connected to a PC, the files "are there", but do nothing and harm nothing.
You can either ignore them, or do a search on the PC and delete them.

I have been deleting them when they show up on the PC. Any idea why they just recently starting showing up?

 

[mac_in_tosh]

Makes sense now. I had forgotten that I had the PC set to show hidden files, for an unrelated reason. When I set it not to show hidden files, the .**** files go away.