Accessing hidden files?

[Charles Papert]

Hi,

I managed to accidently save 7 image files to a "hidden" folder (path appears to be: Computer/var/tmp/folders501/TemporaryItems/com.apple.mail.drag-T0x40a200.tmp.YJZeH2), and I can only see this in the "save as" menu in Photoshop--I can't navigate to it to recover the files, nor can I re-open them. How can I access them? I'm not Terminal-proficient, by the way.

I'm on the latest version of Tiger.

[Nick Jushchyshyn]

Have you tried copy->paste'ing this path into the "Goto" command's dialog box in Finder?

[Charles Papert]

No dice on that one.

Thanks though!

[Charles Papert]

Closest I got was a freeware app called "RBrowser" which shows hidden files, although these didn't show up there, probably because I had restarted the computer since. As a result they did show up as recovered files in the trash, fortunately enough, so all have been resucitated.

[Cannon Pearson]

Do you have CS2? In the Bridge there is an option to show hiden files.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

I'm not Terminal-proficient, by the way.

Assuming that this is the directory pathname, go into terminal and type:

ls -al /var/tmp/folders501/TemporaryItems/com.apple.mail.drag-T0x40a200.tmp.YJZeH2

(that's are the letter "L" as in LS -AL and note the whitespace in between. I don't know why the "computer" part is at the beginning of the path, and I don't think it should be there. /var/tmp is a standard BSD unix directory. I'm also suspicious of the parenthesis at the end of the pathname which wouldn't normally be used in unix - double-check that - I'm leaving it out of my example.)

The command above should list your files in terminal and let you know if you're in the right directory. If so, then create a new directory in your home directory like this:

mkdir myfiles

And make it your current directory:

cd myfiles

Now copy your files there:

cp /var/tmp/folders501/TemporaryItems/com.apple.mail.drag-T0x40a200.tmp.YJZeH2/* .

Look closely at this line - I have added a /* after the pathname which means to copy all files in that directory. That is followed by a blank space and a period.

Now go into the finder in your home directory. You should see the "myfiles" folder your created and the files should be inside.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Duh, sometimes I forget that I'm using a Mac and not a plain vanilla unix box ;-) There's a much easier way to do this.... set the finder for column view and choose "Go To Folder..." from the Go menu. Now type the following in the dialog box:

/var/tmp

Now you should see the folders.501 folder, then click on it to view the contents where you should eventually navigate to your files.

However, the /var/tmp folder isn't a good place for something important. The system daemons regularly empty it out, so unfortunately your files might be gone now. Good luck, and let us know how it works out.