Desktop Inspector for Mac

Desktop Inspector will detect, whether on the Desktop or in any other location, if there are unknown invisible items, i.e. files or folders you created unwillingly or by accident, or were created by a third-party software. Third-party-installed invisible items are usually necessary for a given software to work, although they may also have been planted to act as a malware.

Invisible items (i.e. folders and files) are shown with different icons: 'friendly' (smiley) icons refer to invisible system-files and folders, while 'exclamatory' icons refer to unknown invisible items. In order not to compromise the computer’s expected behavior, ‘friendly’ items by default may not be moved to trash, while unknown invisible ones may be moved to trash. Only enabling the relevant option in the Preferences, ‘friendly’ items too can be moved to trash.

Yet the application, by itself, does not know the names of all the system-files and folders, and obviously does not know which unknown invisible item has been created by a ‘honest’ third-party software. When in doubt, through the ‘Look Up’ function (available right-clicking an item), the name of the selected item will be searched online for you to get an idea about it. Then, should you consider it a friendly one, you can add its name to the internal database. Of each element, the application shows the Operating System's own description and part of its content in computer language.