Cleverfiles Download

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Octavis Marquez

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:42:43 PM8/3/24

to hatchstigansach

I am troubling with my storage volume on my macbook air. My free space is only 3.63 gb and I do not how to handle it. I read some articles on the web and found out I have a lot of unnecessary items on ".cleverfiles" of Macintosh HD. They are probably locked document or something else cause whenever I try to delete them they appear again in the same file. Could you please help me how to delete them ?

Application called Disk Drill created them. You can get rid of them by deleting the application in its settings there is a button and it will also ask you whether you want to keep those files for recovery or not.

I had the same problem. .cleverfiles is a hidden area created by the application Disk Drill. If "Guarenteed Protection" is enabled (i believe it is by default) it moves all deleted files to the hidden folder instead of actually deleting them. You can disable it altogether or configure to only keep certain Folders or only user a certain amount of space. I didn't know the feature existed and It was hard to find even after I read it exisited. From the main disk drill screen, expand the main drive, and select "Potect" next to the Hard Drive.

was puzzled for the longest time why I had so little disk space. i just installed/uninstalled disk drill about 5-6 times and it freed up 10-20 GB of space EACH time, make sure u check delete protected data during the install.

This remains a mystery. In my "About this Mac", I have discovered over 560Gb in my system data. I have gotten a new Mac Mini M2 and need to migrate my files. Now, I've discovered thousands of .cleverfiles. Disk Drill support tells me to simply run the uninstall program. Here's the thing, I never downloaded or used DiskDrill. I have no idea where it came from except in 2021 I had a big crash and had to take the computer in for repair. From what I understand, they may have dragged the app into the trash versus actually uninstalling it. (Of course, the tech I spoke with hasn't any idea whether they have ever used this program and 2 years is just so long ago.

I have found the folder in /System. I can see all the files. I need to know if I can delete these folders. There are some, they are aliases, that show they were recently used... like two days ago! They are aliases that go to folders on the computer.

Another suggestion: Do I download the Disk Drill app and then uninstall it? Will that remove these .cleverfiles? I don't want any of these coming over to the new computer. I understand since they are in the systems, if I use the migrate assist and make sure the system isn't checked, they won't come... however, I still need to use the 2014 MacMini with some software programs that are INtel=based until I get everything reset.

Can anyone give me a definitive answer about these files? The folder .hlink is HUGE. There are aliases in the folder. I don't have the program but it appears something is accessing something somewhere. 99% of the files are from 2021 and earlier. PS I cannot create .cleverfiles or Disk Drill tags since I'm not a 300.

I decided to download the Disk Drill app as the tech suggested. I went through the steps and it appeared nothing happened. I deleted the program and this time answered "no" to the question whether to delete the protected data. I wrote back to Disk Drill and he said, "just go ahead and delete the files then." I tried that (they are hidden in System>Volume) and got a message that one of the files was in use. I tried doing a force delete and that did nothing. I ended up dragging the folder BACK where I started.

I decided to give it a try again, downloaded the program, followed the steps to uninstall, chose "yes" to delete protected data and this time the spinning only lasted about 30 seconds. Lo and behold, the files were gone.