Stop .DS_Store files appearing on network drives and USB

Every time you browse a folder on a Samba share, NAS, or USB drive, macOS quietly writes a .DS_Store file to store view settings like icon positions and sort order. On local drives that's harmless. On shared drives, it's a constant source of noise for Windows and Linux users — and most NAS admins.

Why .DS_Store on network drives is a problem

On a local Mac drive, .DS_Store files sit quietly and nobody sees them. On a network share the situation is different:

• Windows users see the files in every folder they browse.
• Linux servers pick them up in directory listings and ls output.
• Git repos on NAS devices track them unless you add a global .gitignore.
• Synology, QNAP, and other NAS devices accumulate hundreds of them over time.
• Some Samba configurations log warnings about unexpected dot-files.

macOS has had a built-in fix for this since Mac OS X Leopard: a single preference key called DSDontWriteNetworkStores. It's just never been exposed in System Settings.

The fix: one Terminal command

Open Terminal (Applications › Utilities) and run:

# stop writing .DS_Store to network & USB drives
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true

No killall Finder needed. The change takes effect the next time you mount a network volume or USB drive — eject whatever you have connected and remount it.

What this setting does (and doesn't) affect

A common point of confusion: this preference applies to network volumes and USB/external drives only. Your local hard drive and internal SSD are unaffected — Finder will still write .DS_Store files there to remember your local folder preferences. That's the right trade-off: local view settings are useful; polluting a shared drive is not.

Specifically, macOS treats any volume mounted under /Volumes/ as a network or removable drive for the purpose of this setting. That covers:

• SMB/Samba shares (the most common NAS protocol)
• AFP shares (older Macs and Time Capsules)
• NFS mounts
• USB flash drives and external hard drives
• SD cards

Cleaning up .DS_Store files already on a share

Turning off future writes doesn't remove files that are already there. To clean up an existing volume, replace /Volumes/YourShare with the actual mount path of your drive:

# preview what will be deleted (dry run)
find /Volumes/YourShare -name '.DS_Store' -type f

# delete them all
find /Volumes/YourShare -name '.DS_Store' -type f -delete

Run the preview line first so you can see exactly what will be removed before committing. On a large NAS with years of Mac browsing, this can remove thousands of files instantly.

If the share is on a Linux or Windows server you have SSH access to, you can run the same find command directly on the server — it's faster than doing it from the Mac over the network.

How to undo it

If you want macOS to resume writing .DS_Store files to network drives and USB volumes, set the preference back to false:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool false

Or delete the key entirely to restore the factory default:

defaults delete com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores

Remount your volume and Finder will start creating .DS_Store files there again.

Verify the setting took effect

After mounting a drive and browsing a few folders on it, check whether any .DS_Store files were created:

find /Volumes/YourShare -maxdepth 3 -name '.DS_Store'

If nothing appears, the preference is working. You can also read back the current value at any time:

defaults read com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores

A result of 1 means the setting is active.