macOS Git: Suppressing .DS_Store and .turd_MacPorts Globally¶

Context¶

macOS generates .DS_Store (Finder metadata) and .turd_MacPorts (MacPorts directory placeholder) in any directory touched by those tools. Both appear in git status with no project relevance. They are suppressed via a global gitignore so no project .gitignore is polluted with machine-specific entries.

Prerequisites¶

Git installed on macOS
Terminal access

Steps¶

# Create global gitignore and register it
cat >> ~/.gitignore_global << 'EOF'
.DS_Store
**/.DS_Store
.turd_MacPorts
EOF

git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

Why **/.DS_Store in addition to .DS_Store: A bare entry matches only the repo root. The **/ prefix matches at any subdirectory depth.

Why global, not project-level: Both files are OS/toolchain artifacts. A project .gitignore is for files the project generates. Mixing them forces teammates on other OSes to carry irrelevant entries.

If .DS_Store was already committed to a repo:

git rm --cached .DS_Store
git rm --cached -r --ignore-unmatch **/.DS_Store
git commit -m "chore: remove .DS_Store from tracking"

Why --cached: Removes the file from Git's index without deleting it from disk.

Verification¶

git config --global core.excludesfile

Expected:

/Users/ibtisam/.gitignore_global

git check-ignore -v .DS_Store

Expected:

/Users/ibtisam/.gitignore_global:1:.DS_Store    .DS_Store

If git check-ignore returns nothing, core.excludesfile is not set or points to the wrong path.

Troubleshooting¶

`.DS_Store` still appears in `git status` after adding the ignore rule¶

Cause: The file was already tracked before the rule was added. Global ignore rules only apply to untracked files. Fix: git rm --cached .DS_Store inside the affected repo, then commit.