to find number of files in a directory of mac files without the mac cruft counted in, I tried:

find . -not \( -name ".?*" -prune \) -type f | wc -l

However the number returned is suspiciously high. So I'm thinking it may be counting files inside ".*" folders. On examining in a gui file browser (emelFM2) with hidden files displayed, I saw a number of files which do not fit the dot prefix pattern (see attached), so now I want to sweep them all up in one go, but struggling with the syntax:

find . -not \( -name ".?*, _?*, db_?*, lock, log?*, cnid?*" -prune \) -type f | wc -l
find . -not \( -name ".?*", "_?*", "db_?*", "lock", "log?*", "cnid?*" -prune \) -type f | wc -l

both fail, the first returning all files (so not filtering out any), the second returning a "paths must precede expression" error.

Anyone know how this should be put?

find . -name ".AppleDouble" -type d -print0|xargs -0 rm -r --

Did the trick.