Hidden Files in Volume/Temp

I've accidently saved some web images into a folder named temp, in Volumes. I thought I was saving them to a network folder I have named Temp, but it turns out this is a hidden folder.
I don't want to have to re-do these images, and I wonder if there's a way to move these files to the desktop so I can access them?
Can I type a command line in the Terminal, similar to a DOS command?
I see there's a command you can type in Terminal to show hidden files, but I wonder if there's a simpler way to do this?
Thanks!

The easier, non-Terminal, way is to go to the Finder and then to Go -> Go to Folder... and then enter in the pathname to the folder in question and click OK.
For example: /Volumes/temp
This will open up the folder, revealing the files you saved there.
You can then safely drag them out to the Desktop or folder of your choosing.
Hope this helps.
-Jonathan

Similar Messages

ITunes creating duplicate files under a hidden folder named "Volumes".

It seems my iTunes program is secretly making a duplicate file in a hidden folder called "Volumes" on my laptop hard drive. It's now maxxed out my drive and I need to both remove the "Volumes" folder and make sure it doesn't get created and happen again.
Details:
Using a Powerbook G4 with an 80gb drive. Using iTunes 8. The iTunes library program is in the usual place on the lap top hard drive but the music library folder, where all the files get saved to, is on an external drive labeled "Media".
Clicking normally and searching around my laptop hard drive, I do not see or am able to access the folder named "Volumes". But I know it exists as I ran a scan program called jdiscreport and it clearly shows a huge folder, 45gb, named "Volumes". There are also a few old flacs in the "Volume folder also. The iTunes duplicate files are in identically named folders as the external drive: iTunes Music located within Media, located within Volumes.
When I rip a CD in iTunes (or the iTunes-LAME program I sometimes use), the files do go to the proper external folder as expected and as I've set in the iTunes preferences section. So why is iTunes also saving the same thing to this mystery "Volumes" folder on the lap top hard drive? How do I get rid of this folder without wiping my drive? How do I stop it from continuing?
Help, I have 2gb of free space left!
Thanks, James

Hi I am having a similar issue, It all started when I tried to restore from the Time Machine and it threw a error back stating that there is no disk available. I was wondering how come and went to find out what is happening and was shocked to find out that actually my entire Macintosh HD has a duplicate copy inside the /Volumes folder. I went to the XTERM to investigate and found that the / (root) has a Users folder where all my stuffs like pictures, music, movies, documents reside and the same data or content is duplicated in the /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users folder
I first thought that it was only a link, but I later found that it is not a link and it is indeed a physical copy of all my User folders inside the /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users folder and actually occupying my Hard disk space.
I am not sure how this happened or how it is duplicating itself. I am also afraid to delete the stuffs inside the /Volumes folder as it might crash my system (it is already hidden - I assume it is hidden for some purpose). Please suggest any options, how I can get rid of these duplicated data and how to avoid such duplication in the future.
Thanks
Regards
Chelvam.S.T

How do I find and remove hidden files

For some reason, after the recent install of SL my 1TB drive is extremely bloated. I have deleted or moved just about everything possible from the disk (excluding system files and applications) and it still shows that I only have 94.08 GB of space available.
Is there a good piece of software out there that will help me to find out if there are several hidden files and remove what is unnecessary?

Wow ... that was enlightening. I discovered that somehow there is a hidden folder on the 1TB drive entitled "volumes" and within that folder is a subfolder entitled "Mega Drive" (my self-titled name for the 1TB boot drive), which is an exact duplicate of my previous hard drive.
A little more about how I got here. I had to computer in to the Apple Store, after upgrading to SL, for what I initially though was a hardware issue. The Genius felt it was software, did an erase and install. When I got the macing back I tried to us Migration Assistant to copy files from my Time Machine drive, it took all night so I wasn't awake when it finished. I suspect that is where this folder came from, as the next day I could not find the information on my computer, so I started manually moving the files from that drive.
The bottom line is this ... is it safe to remove trash this entire folder?

How to see hidden files in folder, how to see hidden files in folder

how to see hidden files in folders

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You can't see by default hidden files through Finder. However, you can do it with a command that you can copy in Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities). Open this application and type:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE && killall Finder
After doing it, you will be able to see hidden files through Finder in all the volumes connected to the MacBook Pro

Writing to hidden file

I created a text document in a folder and made it hidden (using file properties).
This also seems to have made it read-only, but in the file properties, the read-only checkbox is not checked.
Is there a different procedure for writing to a hidden file, or does Java consider it to be read-only?
String path = "d:\\temp\\hidden.txt";
// Stream to write file
FileOutputStream fout;
try
    // Open an output stream
    fout = new FileOutputStream (path);
    // Print a line of text
    new PrintStream(fout).println ("hello world!");
    // Close our output stream
    fout.close();
// Catches any error conditions
catch (IOException e)
     System.err.println ("Unable to write to file");
     e.printStackTrace();
     System.exit(-1);
}And here is the stack trace:
Unable to write to file
java.io.FileNotFoundException: d:\temp\hidden.txt (Access is denied)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(Unknown Source)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(Unknown Source)
at Test.<init>(Test.java:24)
at Test.main(Test.java:59)
--------------------------------------

Is it only hidden, or also write-protected and/or a
system file?So Java does not have access to all files on a computer then (as mentioned in other treads)? Or does it have read-access to all files?

How to find hidden files?

Hi,
I don't know how I did it, but I managed to hide some folders on an external hard drive plugged into my iMac.
I can find one of them by searching for it by the name. But I cant find the other one because I have no idea what I named the folder (DOH!).
Is there a simple way to display all hidden folders?
I have no idea how I managed to hide the folders in the first place..... I did it a while ago and I must have had too much to drink. I have a vague recollection of downloading some 3rd party software (not 100 percent sure if I did though) and I cant find any such software in the Apps/Utilities folder etc.
Any help welcome.
As you can probably tell, I'm not very tech savvy. So the simpler the method the better!
I'm running the lastest OSX.
Thanks in advance!

Hi..
Simple, maybe not, but:
You could open a terminal (it's in utilities) and
enter: ls -al /Volumes/Mydrivename
where Mydrivename is the name of your drive
It will show all files and folders at the top level of your drive.
Lines starting with a 'd' is folders.
If the foldername starts with a '.'
it's a hidden folder.
i'm not sure if you can display hidden files and folders in a finder window.
Hope this helps
/Dennis

Hidden files taking up too much space

I've got a major disk-space problem. I only have 4GB of files, yet my 160GB hard drive is full. If I add up everything (shown) on the drive, it amount to only 65GB, which means that I have close to 95GB of hidden files!
When I try to go through the hidden files, I get errors like "you do not have permission to open this folder" and such. I cannot determine the size of a lot of the folders. If I right-click and choose Get Info, it says "calculating size" and hangs forever, never actually displaying the size.
Here's what the drive looks like:
Mac Mini, 2009, Mavericks

I have tried removing Time Machine Backups with sudo tmutil disablelocal. It didn't free up any space. I have tried to locate the Time Machine backup files with no success. (I looked for /.MobileBackups, I looked in the /Volumes directory, and I did a Finder search for ".MobileBackups")
I ran OmniDiskSweeper with these results:
I am currently in the process of re-indexing spotlight.

How to find hidden files in macbook air?

I want to change image file in Xcode project but I can't find a necessary folder. Help please!

Hi..
Simple, maybe not, but:
You could open a terminal (it's in utilities) and
enter: ls -al /Volumes/Mydrivename
where Mydrivename is the name of your drive
It will show all files and folders at the top level of your drive.
Lines starting with a 'd' is folders.
If the foldername starts with a '.'
it's a hidden folder.
i'm not sure if you can display hidden files and folders in a finder window.
Hope this helps
/Dennis

Showing hidden files white screen upon restart

I put in the command to show hidden files and restarted my iMac. It only shows a white screen. Completely blank. How do I fix it? It runs on Lion and has a Time Machine backup.

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a boot failure is to secure your data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Boot into the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
If you've booted from an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 3
Boot in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
When you boot in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, your boot volume is corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 5.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 4
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 5
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select your startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 6
Reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Step 7
Repeat step 6, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a Time Machine or other backup.
Step 8
This step applies only to a pre-2013 Mac Pro tower, not to any other model. A dead logic-board battery can cause a gray screen at boot. Typically the boot failure will be preceded by loss of the startup disk and system clock settings. See the user manual for replacement instructions.
Step 9
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested.

USB/SDcard deleted/hidden files

Hi All
I realised myself quite recently that files that were 'deleted' on a USB stick were still taking up space on the USB dongle. Anyway it didn't occur to me to empty the trash because 'windows' doesn't work like that, until that is I read some of the other posts.
Even so when USB dongles or SD cards that contain or have contained 'deleted' files I've seen that the iMAC has inserted new folders on the external dongle/SD called .Trash & .Spotlight. I only saw these folders & their contents when the dongle/SD card was connected to a Cyclone Micro Media device. This explained why the Cyclone doesn't recognise these 'deleted' photo JPGs & stops the slide show i.e. because they have two dots in the filename (eg .IMAGE001.JPG) which the Cyclone doesn't like.
Sorry to whitter on ... my questions are:
+- can the Mac OS display files that are hidden (as you can do on windows) in the Trash (or elsewhere for that matter)+
+- why doesn't the Finder display of the Trash identify the full path name - by that I mean identify the actual device that holds the 'deleted' file. It doesn't seem to me that the 'deleted' files on a particular device can be identified from the list? or havn't I found the method yet?+
+- would dropping into unix reveal such information and could you then delete the 'deleted' files held on a specific external device?+
thanks -- keith

HI red4vr,
welcome to the forums.
http://osxdaily.com/2009/02/25/show-hidden-files-in-os-x/ explains how to hide/show hidden files in the finder. As well as how to list hidden files in the terminal, and in the save/open dialog box. There are lots of hidden files on the computer that you should under no circumstance try to delete. A good rule of thumb is if you didn't make the folder, or what's in the folder; don't delete it. don't rename it, don't move it.
If this is some thing you want to do on a regular basis you may want to use a program like 'blind." http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/22495/blind this program adds a tool bar button to hide/show hidden files.
You are correct about the trash can, it shows every thing (not counting hidden files) in the trash for all the drives connected. If you want to tell what is on a specific external volume. You can goto that trash folder.
ie: finder, menu bar, go menu, goto folder, /volumes/NameOfVolume/.Trash
Have a great new year

Access Time Machine´s hidden files in Windows

Does anyone know how to access Time Machine´s hidden files in Windows? I tried using MacDrive v7... but in its help files... it says that the app itself (MacDrive) will not show files on a Mac-formatted drive, partion, volume, etc. if MAC OS X itself intentionally hides certain files. Confused?
If MAC OS X hides files in the Time Machine hard drive, MacDrive will hide them too.
I want to access some of my documents that are on my Time Machine external hard drive on my Windows computer.
Why? I took my Time Machine hard drive with me out of the country.

Are you anywhere near a place that sells Macs? If so, you might see if they will copy the files for you. A university might be another place to check to see if they have any Macs or anything running Unix and would be willing to help you out.

Boot Camp 3.0 and hidden files

I've upgraded Boot Camp to 3.0.
Windows XP can access Mac disks except all files in my /Users folder (Desktop, Documents, Library, etc.).
Clicking option "Show hidden files and folders" only shows mac's hidden files.
Can anyone help?

Hello everyone:
By deleting the Xauthority hidden file on Mac and then booting into windows, it will work GUI wise. However once you are back in the Mac OS X environment and if you launch any application using X11 or X 11 itself, it will rebuild the Xauth. file once more and the temp hack is no longer usable. So for all guys that want to use mac70's hack and never use X11 then go for it if you only want GUI listings of your user home folder files.
By the way nice discovery mac70

Hidden files taking up disk space

My son has been using my wife's computer and has instaled several apps including a screen capture prgram called debut. Now the computer gives a message that it is out of disk space. I set the view options to "calculate all sizes". When I look at the contenst of the user folder, they do not add up to what the finder says is there. The finder says there 92 gigs used, but the contents as show only add up to about 45 gigs. So I'm guessing that one of these apps has installed some sort of "hidden" files. Searching around the community here, I saw it was suggested to use OmniDiskSweeper. When I run that it shows that my "Library" folder inside my wife's "User" folder is about 50 gigs. However, that "Library" folder is not visible in the Finder view. Does anyone know why that would be? Also, having used DiskSweeper to reveal all the files, how do I know what is safe to delete from that "Library" folder?

This is what I do....I open terminal and issue the following commands (you need to be an administrator)..it will take a few minutes to run since it's counting up space
cd /
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g
This gives a listing in GB at your root level
It should look something like this
MacPro:/ xxxxx$ sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g
Password:
1          ./.DocumentRevisions-V100
1          ./.fseventsd
2          ./.Spotlight-V100
0          ./.TemporaryItems
0          ./.Trashes
0          ./.vol
31          ./Applications
1          ./bin
0          ./cores
1          ./dev
1          ./home
5          ./Library
1          ./net
0          ./Network
0          ./opt
1          ./private
1          ./sbin
4          ./System
44          ./Users
1          ./usr
1          ./Volumes
85          .
85          total
I'm using 31GB in applications and 44GB in users. That's the majority. If you see big numbers in ./Volumes for example, that is the sign of a failed TM restore, etc...
Now I cd into Users (cd Users) and rerun the same command
MacPro:Users xxxxx$ sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g
1          ./bootadmin
44          ./xxxxx
1          ./Shared
44          .
44          total
You can see that I'm using all the 44GB, not the user bootadmin, not shared
Now if I cd into xxxxx and rerun the command I get this
MacPro:~ xxxxx$ sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g
1          ./.cups
1          ./.dropbox
1          ./.dvdcss
0          ./.idm
1          ./.ssh
0          ./.Trash
1          ./Applications
1          ./Desktop
10          ./Documents
1          ./Downloads
1          ./Dropbox
21          ./Library
1          ./Movies
1          ./Music
12          ./Pictures
1          ./Public
0          ./Sites
44          .
44          total
So I have 10GB of documents, 21GB in my Library, 12GB of photos
One more time in Library (cd ~/Library)
(truncated for brevity)
I have 7GB of application support and 12GB of mail
So with simple commands I can trackdown strageness with storage. You can't know what to delete but you can ask here "why is this folder using so much space?" Your son may have his own account and is using 40GB of space now. My own son has downloaded several games on his mac where each one is 15GB.

Show hidden files won't stick

Hi,
I'm setting up an i7 Mac Mini with Mavericks and trying to show hidden files. Using Terminal I do the old
$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
$ killall Finder
But hidden files are still invisible.
When I try to read back it reports:
The domain/default pair of ([...]com.apple.finder, AppleShowAllFiles) does not exist
I've opened the plist up in XCode and every time I add it there it disappears as soon as I issue the `killall Finder` command.
Anybody know why this might be?

Back up all data.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, they may not work as described.
Step 1
If you have more than one user account, and the one in question is not an administrator account, then temporarily promote it to administrator status in the Users & Groups preference pane. To do that, unlock the preference pane using the credentials of an administrator, check the box markedAllow user to administer this computer, then reboot. You can demote the problem account back to standard status when this step has been completed.
Triple-click anywhere in the following line on this page to select it:
{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:staff ~ $_ ; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ ; } 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
You'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command may take a few minutes to run, or perhaps longer if you have literally millions of files in your home folder. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2 (optional)
Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1 or if it doesn't solve the problem.
Boot into Recovery. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open.
In the Terminal window, type this:
res
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.
Select the startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if it's not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if it's not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.

I can see hidden files

I formated my HD and installed Leopard from the beginning. I let it to upgrade from Internet and sync with Apple .mac to get my contacts/calendars...
After all that, I opened finder and my surprise was to see 13 folder in my HDD !!!.
I have checked and I have system files hidden, so I do not know how I can see all this. I have search here and found that there is a bug when restoring from images, but I did not do that.
How I set this files again to hidden???.
I can see: etc (link), tmp (link), var (link), bin , cores, private, sbin, usr and volumes.

Hi - to stop hidden files showing in Finder go to terminal (in utilities) and type:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
then press enter and type:
killall Finder
then press enter again. To make them show up again in finder do exactly the same, but substitute TRUE for FALSE in the first command.
Hope this helps.
p.s. be careful with hidden files - they are hidden for a reason!
Message was edited by: Foozlum

Hidden Files in Volume/Temp

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