Spotlight Tip: Getting Rid Of Windows Files

I was using my spotlight search this morning looking for a file that started with the word “thumb” and to my dismay, I was presented with a huge list of remainder Windows files all over my Mac. This was easily remedied, however, with a simple altered search but it brought up a good point. Have you ever wanted to get rid of a bunch of unnecessary Windows files on your Mac? With spotlight, it’s a cinch! Here’s what you do:

Let’s start with “thumbs.db”. Do a spotlight search for thumbs.db and click “show all” (right under the spotlight text entry area. You will get a window something like this:

spotlightsearch.jpg

Now all you have to do is select them all and drop them in the trash! Easy huh? Now if you have any others (like desktop.ini) that you want to kill, you can do the same thing for those. Just a simple little tip in case you handn’t thought of it yet.



  • Wow do I hate Thumbs.db... >:(
  • I had the same problem...good post! For the more tech savvy people (more comfortable w/ unix/linux commands), you can open terminal and type this:

    find . -name "Thumbs.db" -exec rm \{} \;

    That'll do the job!
  • Actually no, this was from me pulling my old documents and folders from my old windows machine or my network. But that would do it too, wouldn't it?
  • Brent, i assume you have all these *db files because you have installed parallels & windows * ?
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