Ah yes. I’d overlooked them in my script. System Events includes invisibles when returning disk items. While the Finder will error if specifically asked to return those invisibles, it seems it will delete them if passed their paths in a list.
My script can easily be adapted in either of two ways, depending on which seems the best idea at the time. One is to get the files’ ‘visible’ properties too and eliminate any paths where the corresponding ‘visible’ is false:
use sorter : script "Custom Iterative Ternary Merge Sort" -- <https://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=194430#p194430>
use scripting additions
on main()
script o
property filePaths : missing value
property fileSizes : missing value
property fileVisibles : missing value
end script
set thePath to (choose folder) as text
-- Get corresponding lists of the folder's files' paths, sizes, and visibles. System Events is faster than the Finder for this.
tell application "System Events" to set {o's filePaths, o's fileSizes, o's fileVisibles} to {path, size, visible} of files of folder thePath
-- Sort all three lists on the files' paths (can be omitted), then (stably) on the sizes.
tell sorter to sort(o's filePaths, 1, -1, {slave:{o's fileSizes, o's fileVisibles}}) -- If desired.
tell sorter to sort(o's fileSizes, 1, -1, {slave:{o's filePaths, o's fileVisibles}})
-- Initialise a "current size" variable to some figure below the lowest size.
set currentSize to (beginning of o's fileSizes) - 1024
-- Work through the visibles and sizes. At each non-visible or size increase, replace the corresponding path with missing value.
repeat with i from 1 to (count o's fileVisibles)
if (item i of o's fileVisibles) then -- visible = true.
set thisSize to item i of o's fileSizes
if (thisSize > currentSize) then
set item i of o's filePaths to missing value
set currentSize to thisSize
end if
else -- visible = false.
set item i of o's filePaths to missing value
end if
end repeat
-- Get a list containing only the unreplaced paths and bulk-delete those files.
-- The Finder accepts list of paths for this. System Events's dictionary says it does too, but it doesn't accept lists of anything on my machine.
set filesToDelete to o's filePaths's text
tell application "Finder" to delete filesToDelete
return
end main
main()
Or, if you take invisible files simply as those whose names begins with “.”, and you’re only searching one folder, the paths to such files will be sorted to the beginning when the paths are sorted and so they can be eliminated then:
use sorter : script "Custom Iterative Ternary Merge Sort" -- <https://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=194430#p194430>
use scripting additions
on main()
script o
property filePaths : missing value
property fileSizes : missing value
end script
set thePath to (choose folder) as text
-- Get corresponding lists of the folder's files' paths and sizes. System Events is faster than the Finder for this.
tell application "System Events" to set {o's filePaths, o's fileSizes} to {path, size} of files of folder thePath
-- Sort both lists on the files' paths.
tell sorter to sort(o's filePaths, 1, -1, {slave:{o's fileSizes}})
set numberOfFiles to (count o's filePaths)
-- Replace paths containing ":." with missing value. In a single-level hierarchy, these will have been sorted to the beginning of the path list.
repeat with i from 1 to numberOfFiles
if (item i of o's filePaths contains ":.") then
set item i of o's filePaths to missing value
else
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
-- If there are at least two visible paths left …
if (i < numberOfFiles) then
-- Sort the corresponding items in both lists on the files' sizes.
tell sorter to sort(o's fileSizes, i, -1, {slave:{o's filePaths}})
-- Initialise a "current size" variable to some figure below the lowest size.
set currentSize to (item i of o's fileSizes) - 1024
-- Work through the sizes. At each increase, replace the corresponding path with missing value.
repeat with i from i to numberOfFiles
set thisSize to item i of o's fileSizes
if (thisSize > currentSize) then
set item i of o's filePaths to missing value
set currentSize to thisSize
end if
end repeat
-- Get a list containing only the unreplaced paths and bulk-delete those files.
-- The Finder accepts list of paths for this. System Events's dictionary says it does too, but it doesn't accept lists of anything on my machine.
set filesToDelete to o's filePaths's text
tell application "Finder" to delete filesToDelete
end if
return
end main
main()
