What are command line tools?

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Created Dec ’23

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I was trying to hide some external drives from desktop, I know I can do it from finder preferences, but it will hide all my external drives from desktop. I want drive A, B, C to be visible on desktop but don't want drive D to be visible.

Some website suggest this solution: sudo SetFile -a V /Volumes/"Drive Name"

but it says I need command line tools, since I was in terminal, and prompt come from MacOS itself, I stared installation. But what are this tools actually is it sahe to install it?

And why this tool taking 2.35GB of storage just to hide one icon from desktop?

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Answer 1

ssmith_c OP

Dec ’23

use your favorite search engine to look for "what is in mac command line tools", and you might find this link, for example, which will tell you more

https://mac.install.guide/commandlinetools/index.html

You ask is it safe to install the tools - yes. Is it safe to use the tools - well, it depends on what you do with them. Why are they so large - they do a lot more than set the visibility attribute of files. The SetFile tool itself is 168KB.

hope this helps, good luck

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