How to troubleshoot "... was blocked because this type of file can harm your device." issue with MS Edge How to show the command line in the Task Manager How to change file associations in Windows 10 and 11 What is a file whose name starts with ._ prefix? How to troubleshoot when the thumbnail images of WebP files are not shown on File Explorer How to open Internet Properties (Internet Options) in Windows 11 How to create a dump file on Task Manager How to troubleshoot when the context menus do not work correctly in Windows 11 22H2 How to troubleshoot when AppX package installation fails How to troubleshoot Error Code: XX-12157 How to install WebView2 How to delete thumbnail caches in File Explorer Domain names used by Bandisoft

What is a file whose name starts with ._ prefix?

macOS creates files whose names start with a dot and underscore (._) to store information about other files. These files with the prefix to their names are created only in some file systems developed not by Apple, including the FAT and exFAT. macOS considers the files as a kind of system files and makes them invisible to its user, but you still can view the files on Windows.

For example, after copying a file to a USB drive in the exFAT format...

Files you can view on Mac Finder

Invisible files you can find with Terminal

Files you can view on Windows