Don't pollute user space

Naughty applications fill up my user-specific Documents folder with garbage I neither created nor care to see. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve decided to abandon my Documents directory altogether.

And now, straight from Apple’s file system guidelines:

It is important to remember that the user domain (/Users) is intended for files created by the user. With the exception of the ~/Library directory, your application should never install files into the user’s home directory. In particular, you should never install files into a user’s Documents directory or into the /Users/Shared directory. These directories should only be modified by the user.

Even if your application provides clip art or sample files that the user would normally manipulate, you should place those files in either the local or user’s Library/Application Support directory by default. The user can move or copy files from this directory as desired. If you are concerned about the user finding these files, you should include a way for the user to browse or access them directly from your application’s user interface.

Emphasis mine, of course.

3 Comments

  1. I hate Dream Weaver for a similar reason (some other people at work use it) it dumps _notes folders in every single folder in a web project.

    Macs in general dump ._FILENAME duplicates of every single file you touch on network drives.

    .DS_Store files are also pushed into every folder you view.

    So, yeah, it's a separate issue, but Apple itself litters in every folder it visits.

  2. As a developer once said, find * | egrep \/\\._ | xargs rm.

    As for my issue, I ended up creating a second Documents directory, "Documents " (with a trailing space), to hold user-created files. It's dirty, but it makes me immeasurably happier.

  3. Oh, I know you can remove them, but the fact they ever existed to be removed still bugs me. Besides, I have to clear out those files several times a day or I end up uploading them to the server inadvertently, so that isn't a onetime fix. It becomes part of your everyday work-flow which bugs me.

    And yes, that's basically what I've done even on windows, you always end up with applications that default to making new projects and save files in the documents folder. I've come to not trust the default organizational scheme the OS suggests mostly because of the pollution issue you've encountered. It isn't unique to the mac.

    http://www.m2tm.net/RandomImages/ClutteryDocumentFolder.png

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