Jocala dotclean
Keep Non-Mac Disks Clean
Copy a file to a USB stick, an SD card or a Windows share and macOS leaves
debris behind: .DS_Store files, and ._ AppleDouble
companions that carry the extended attributes the filesystem cannot store.
They show up on Windows, on Linux, on cameras and on TVs. dotclean removes
them — live, as they appear, or on demand from the Finder with a preview
of exactly what will go. It runs as you, not as root: no daemon, no installer,
no administrator password.
Features
Live Cleanup
Watches every non-Mac volume and deletes ._ and .DS_Store the moment they appear.
Clean on Demand
Right-click a disk or folder in the Finder → Services → Clean using DotClean, or use the menu bar.
Preview First
Every clean shows counts and sizes before anything is removed. No silent deletion, ever.
Clean & Eject
One action for USB keys and SD cards: clean, unmount, and detach when it is done.
No Root Daemon
No privileged helper and no system-wide delete rights. It runs as you, in your session.
Command Line Included
A bclean tool ships inside the app for scripting. Dry-run unless you pass --yes.
What It Removes
Deleted from non-Mac volumes
._AppleDouble files.DS_Store.AppleDoublefolders__MACOSXfoldersThumbs.dbanddesktop.ini.apdisk,.VolumeIcon.icns.Trashes,.Spotlight-V100,.fseventsd(on demand only)$Recycle.bin,System Volume Information(on demand only)
Never touched
- Any APFS or HFS+ volume — Mac disks are left alone by default
._files for fonts and artwork, where the companion file is the data- Mount points, and anything outside the volume you selected
- Symlinks are never followed
- Your actual files
Get dotclean 1.0
macOS 13 or newer, Apple Silicon or Intel. The download is a signed and notarized disk image: open it and drag DotClean to Applications. There is no installer package and no administrator password — it installs nothing outside its own bundle.
How it works
dotclean listens to the filesystem with a single FSEvents stream rooted at
/ and filters events by mount point, so plugging in a stick never
needs a restart. Anything matching a rule on a non-Mac volume is removed
immediately. If the kernel ever drops events under heavy load, the affected
subtree is re-scanned instead of being ignored. Every deletion is written to
~/Library/Logs/DotClean/dotclean.log.
On-demand cleans run the same rule engine in two phases — scan, then delete — so the list you approve is the list that gets removed. Files are checked again immediately before each unlink: same volume, not a mount point, not a symlink.