Unix Executable Files...why won't they open?

I now have a new iMac and using Mavericks 10.9.3. I used TimeMachine to transfer my files (that contained these strange "Exec" files after I had updated to Mavericks on my previous iMac) a number of these files turned into something called "Exec" files (Black rectangular icon with green "exec" in the upper left corner). and randomly appeariing in diff software. Have these files become corrupted? Should I trash them?
Thanks for any help
Julie

In the Finder, click on these Exec files and press command+I. If the file is an AppleWorks document (even with no extension) it will tell you that. If it is a UNIX shell script with owner+group+world execute permissions, or a compiled executable from source code, it will state that it is a UNIX Executable File.
In the Terminal application, you can use the file command to discern (usually) more accurately what these black Exec documents comprise. The filenames that I use below at random, were created on my machine.
file -b dictx2
Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
file -b mvim
POSIX shell script text executable
file -b fubar.cwk # Finder Get Info says it is an AppleWorks document, and opens nicely in LibreOffice
data
The decision to delete these depends on what they are, the purpose they may continue to serve, and in the case of word processing documents, content for retention consideration.

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Unix executable file won't open HELP!

I am having the same problem as one other person, my word folder has changed to a Unix executable file and I can't open the content in the folders anymore. I was just using the folder yesterday and now they are now working. Please help!

I'm not sure if this is your problem. But I was futzing with a file, and intentionally removed most of it's attributes, as reported by the mdls command.
I was able to get enough of them back, for the file to be recognized by the finder again.
This command lists the different importers.
$ mdimport -L
find the one that matches the filetype. Then run the following, where testfile is the file that you're having problems with.
mdimport -g /System/Library/Spotlight/XXXXXX.mdimporter testfile
I don't use Word, so I can't tell you the name of the importer file that you need. It may be possible to just
run
mdimport testfile
Nils

Opening a Archival UNIX Executable file

I am currently using Maverick 10.9.2 . I am trying to open an archive file amd folder. The problem is that when I download the file, it appears as unix executable file and it cannot be opened. I have read in past posts that if the file does not have extension, it may become a unix executable file. I have changed them to .DOC, but no luck. Also when I tried to download the file later, the format changed to documents, but still could not be opened. Is there a problem because it was archived? If you have insight this problem as well, I would appreciate if you could let me know. Thanks in advance.

I'm assumimg that the file is either a zip, tar, gnuzip, or bzip2 archive. Remove the file extention from the file and move it to your desktop. From the Finder.app > Go menu > select "Go to Folder...", in the text box type- /System/Library/CoreServices . Drag the Archive Utility.app on to the dock. The Archive Utility.app icon will now appear in the dock. Drag the archive file onto the Archive Utility.app icon and the archive should be uncompressed and appear on your desktop.

Old Quark files are now Unix Executable Files

I made hundreds of archive CD's with Mac's running OS 9 back in 1990's. They contain Quark files and .tif's. I've referred back to these CD's many many times over the years with no problems. My new iMac has the intel processor. I pop an archive CD in and all the files (with no extensions like "tif" or ".qkd" or ".eps") are now "Unix Executable Files" that won't open.
I simply add an extension to the images files (like ".tif") and they work. HOWEVER, it's not so easy with the Quark files. I add ".qkd" to the file name and it still remains a Unix file.
I launch Quark and try to open the file through the finder and it doesn't work. I took an archive CD to a friends house whose on a G5 and the CD worked properly with no extensions needed to be added.
So I figure the problem is with the Intel/PC based processor. I shouldn't have sold my old G5.
One forum claimed that a program called "File Buddy" did the trick for him. Does anyone have any other ideas other than me buying a non-Intel Mac.
I love our new iMacs but I need these archive CD's to work!
Thanks

I automatically run OnyX once a week for maintenance, but it didn't help this situation.
Those chores won't reset the LaunchServices database. Go to the Maintenance heading and click on the Reset tab. Turn on the check box for "LaunchServices database" (all other check boxes off). Click the Reset radio button and then Execute. Restart your Mac.
OS X will automatically rebuild the database according to the applications on your hard drive, giving preference to Apple applications as they would be when you first install OS X. So if you have the Acrobat Reader set up to open PDF files, you'll have to do that again as they will be set back to Preview.
Actually it's .qxd not .qkd for Quark XPress file extensions.
That's it! I knew .qkd was wrong, but Quark 6.x won't show you the old extensions when you save a file, and I couldn't remember it (been using InDesign steadily for a while now).

Photoshop .psd files converted to Unix Executable files

I'm an illustrator and I store my art on CDs and DVDs. After a period of time my files are converted from Photoshop .psd files to Unix Executable files and I can't open them. What can I do to get my work back??? -and keep this from happening in the future. Why does it do this????
Thanks for any help.

The file sizes range from 22.2 MB to 67.9 MB.
Size isn't the issue then. Linc was asking that question because we see that with other file types. Older fonts in particular, which have all of their data in the resource fork. If that gets stripped, you end up with a zero byte file.
Does that mean I'll have to go through the Adobe authorization process for Photoshop again?
If the version of Photoshop you're currently using is already activated, then no. Either way, it has nothing to do with .psd files showing as UNIX executables.
In Windows, any file that doesn't have an association to a program is displayed as a white, dog-eared piece of paper with the Windows logo in the middle. That's Windows' way of saying, "I have no idea what this is." In OS X, (except for those files which actually are UNIX executables), displaying them as such is OS X's way of saying the same thing.
I thought I was home free when the icon changed to a thumbnail picture of the illustration, but PS refuses to open it saying it is not a Photoshop file. ???
Now that is weird. As of Snow Leopard, Apple put the old Type and Creator codes to rest. It will read them as a last resort to try and identify an older file, but none of Apple's applications add them to any file they save. For better compatibility with Windows, and OS X's own underlying UNIX core, file extensions have taken their place. So adding a .psd extension should have worked. Without playing with one of your files, I couldn't tell you why Photoshop declared it wasn't a valid .psd image.
On a side note, Apple added Uniform Type Identifiers to OS X to keep things separate. A big problem in Windows is that multiple apps may use the same file extension. EPS is a big one in printing. So you have Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Quark and others all using .eps for Encapsulated PostScript files. However, Windows can only associate one application to any given extension. So if Illustrator happens to be the one tagged to .eps files, it will try to open any file ending in .eps, no matter what program actually created it. OS X keeps them separate with Uniform Type Identifiers. So even though multiple files may have .eps file extensions, the extra metadata keeps track of what program it actually belongs to.
This is what is part of the LaunchServices database, and was why it was my first suggestion. If that database is wonky, you'll see weird things like this. Have you tried clearing it yet?
The files are fine when newly burned to CD. It is only months, or years, later that they become Unix Executable Files. This has happened to just about all of my CD backups and it's frustrating to think that CD backup doesn't work across newer OSs and Photoshop upgrades. I suspect that may be the problem, but it just shouldn't happen.
That shouldn't make a difference. I've got a bunch of very old files created in Photoshop back from OS 8 on CD. No file extensions, as nothing did at the time. Just Type and Creator codes. They all open fine in PS CS5.5 in Snow Leopard, though the native Photoshop files do need to have a .psd extension added.

What do I do with unix executable files??

Hi guys,
I recently filmed a short movie with my friend. I used a Panasonic camera to film with a tdk sd card. I tried to open the video files on the sd card, but the mac can't open the files. The file extension reads as a unix executable file.
How can I open these files????
Please help!

Hi warpdesign,
   In old-style shell environments, all files in the current working directory were defined to be in your PATH, where the shell looks for executables. That was before Trojan Horses. Now you have to specify the current working directory in the command line. Fortunately there is a nice "shorthand" for that. If foo.sh is an executable in the current working directory then it can be invoked this way:
./foo.sh
   If you're interested in learning a little more about UNIX, I used to have a long post of links to what I think are some of the better beginning UNIX tutorials and books. However, as others posted great links and I stole them, my post became too long so I put it in a web page. Bill Scott did the same thing so here is Bill's and here is mine.
Gary
~~~~
   University politics are vicious precisely because the
   stakes are so small.
         -- C. P. Snow

Unix Executable Files how to open

I have a disc from a design company which contains many Unix Executable Files. I have no idea what the content files extensions are and some of the files are quite large. The cotents are important for my job. Is there any way I can open these files? A 5 hour internet search and I'm no closer to a solution, I'm just more confused. I am scared to just try adding a 'guess' extention as the contents I am hoping to find are ai, psd or other hi res but there could be text data. I am scared of destroying stuff. Can anyone help me please?
Thank you,
Amanda

If the file follows the "proper conventions", in terminal use the file command. In terminal, type the command file followed by a space. Then drag one of the files into the terminal window. You will see a line that looks something like,
file path-to-file
Hit return. If it's a file that the file command can recognize it will tell you what it thinks it is. It it isn't it will tell you it's just a data file.
If it's a executable mach-o file file will tell you that and for which architecture. But if you are getting these files from some non-Mac system the odds are pretty good they can't be executed in the mac environment because they won't follow the mac architectural coding conventions or they aren't even mach-o executables in the first place. If they did come from a mac system and are executable, then without any documentation on each file you can only guess at what they may do (or screw up). Many unix tools have a convention where if you just execute them without any arguments they may give you some minimum help info on what they do. But it may not.
Not one of those files documents what on that CD?
If file does recognize the file, say as a pdf, or text, etc., then you probably can use mac tools to open them. For example, if it's pdf (gif, jpg, etc.) open it with preview. If text, open with textedit.

Need help opening Unix Executable Files

I've recently been given the task of updating various files containing instruction manuals. However, the person who created these files is long gone and no one seems to know what program they were created in. All I know is that they are listed as "Unix Executable File" when I click on the document. I've tried opening them in TextEdit and this does me no good. Does anyone know how I can determine what program these files were originally created in so that I can open them?

Files that have no filename extensions (used by Windows and OS X, but not by OS 9) and have lost their Type and Creator codes (used by OS 9, but not by Windows or OS X), and are then written to a DOS-formatted disc by OS 9 and copied back to a Mac disc, are usually if not always misidentified by the OS X Finder as Unix executables.
Your company's old files, created in applications that ran in OS 9, probably have never had any filename extensions. Their Type and Creator codes have evidently been lost; those are what OS 9 uses to link the files to the applications that created them. If the files have also been written by OS 9 to any disk or flash drive formatted for Windows, i.e. FAT16 or FAT32, they have also lost their resource forks. The resource fork is a portion of a Mac file that has no analogous structure in a PC file. When a Mac file that contains data in its resource fork is written by OS 9 to a PC-formatted storage device, there's no place in the Windows file structure for that data — so it is simply discarded. When the Mac file is later copied back onto a Mac-formatted storage device, its resource fork is gone along with whatever data it contained, and the file may for all practical purposes be destroyed. OS X handles writing Mac files to Windows-formatted drives more gracefully, but passing files back and forth between OS 9 and OS X via a Windows-formatted storage device is asking for trouble.
I don't know just what practices have been used in moving these files from the Macs they were created on to the one you're trying to open them on now, but I suspect there has been some unwitting demolition in the process.
If copies of these files are still stored on the old Mac on which they were created, and that Mac still works, get on it and double-click the saved copies of the files to open them in the program(s) that created them, and make notes of which application opens each of the files. Be aware that the folder structure containing the files may have to be preserved exactly as it is for the files to open properly — do not reorganize anything. It may be essential, for example, for a PageMaker file to be kept in the same folder as all the individual files that have been "placed" in it using the Place command in PageMaker. If any of those files are moved elsewhere, they may be missing from the PageMaker document when it opens. I've never used Quark or Freehand, so I don't know whether they have the same requirement, or other requirements that are less than obvious.
Any of the old manuals that you're able to open in their original applications can be saved as PDF files using an invaluable OS 9-based "printer driver" called PrintToPDF. They can then be opened in Adobe Reader or Preview on your G5 running OS X, though you won't be able to edit them easily. If you require the ability to edit these files on the G5, rather than on the old computer using the apps that originally created them, you will need first to discover which OS 9-based application created each one, and then ascertain what if any current OS X-based application is able to open the file format used by that old application. In the case of PageMaker files, that will probably be Adobe InDesign or nothing. InDesign may also open old Quark files; I don't know. Aldus or Adobe Freehand files may be openable using Adobe Illustrator. These are just guesses.
Dragging and dropping the files onto MS Word or TextWrangler may reveal, buried somewhere in them, the name of the application(s) that created them. I know a PageMaker file, opened as plain text, will always contain the word "PageMaker". As for other file formats, I'm not sure.
Message was edited by: eww
Message was edited by: eww

Problems after opening "Get Document" Unix Executable file

After importing documents from my Dell computer to macbookpro and opening a file called "Get Document" which is a Unix Executable file, I now have dozens of these type of these type of files in "Places":
file://localhost/Users/sacredsprings/%25B0%2580%25A9%25C0SR
I had Linux installed on my Dell, and having read a few threads think it may be to do with that. Can I just safely delete all these files?

Sometimes ZIP files are made into self-expanding .exe files. When run on a PC, they will unzip without needing any unzipping software. They will not do this on a Mac, but Stuffit Expander may work with them
<http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/>

AppleWorks 6.0 Files Listed As Unix Executable Files. Unable To Open.

A client of mine backed up a number of AppleWorks 5 & 6 files last week on a PowerMac w/ OS X 10.3. I reformatted the HD, upgraded the OS to 10.4 and attempted to reinstall AppleWorks 6.0. It would not allow installation. So, I installed OS 9 Classic. Still would not allow me to install AppleWorks. Then, I installed iWork '08, having read that it would open AppleWorks files. iWork would only open a hand full of the files. The remaining 90% of the files are listed as "Unix Executable" files.
Have the files been corrupted in the move?
Any ideas on how to open/recover these files?
Thanks,
stc

If one device used during the process was not an HFS one, the AppleWorks documents may have lost their resourceFork.
Are you sure that the files are named with the name extension ".cwk" which is quite required under Mac OS X?
Then, I installed iWork '08, having read that it would open AppleWorks files.
This is right and wrong.
Iwork components are able to work this way:
Pages may open AppleWorks 6 WP document, not the AW5 ones
Numbers may open AppleWorks 6 SS document, not the AW5 ones
Keynote may open AppleWorks 6 Presentation document, not the AW5 ones
Nothing may open the DB, Paint and Draw AW documents.
There is no reason that you can't install AppleWorks on a machine running 10.4.
I installed AppleWorks 6.0.4 last week on a machine running 10.4.11.
So, at this time it seems that the main problem is to understand why you are unable to reinstall AppleWorks 6.
If you wish to know if the documents are in good health, you may attach one to a mail and send it to my mailbox.
Click my blueName to get my address.
Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 25 août 2008 19:12:51)

Can't open recovered files, which are now Unix Executable Files

My external hard drive, where I kept my Final Cut Pro documents, recently died. I hired someone to recover the data. Now, when I try to open them in FCP 6, however, I get the message "File Error: Wrong Type". It says they are "Unix Executable Files". Looking back in this forum, none of the previous solutions have worked for me--like adding .mov to the file extensions, for example.

ah, the subtle difference between a movie or media file and a project file.
Thanks for posting your solution, hardly anyone ever does that around here. And congrats on the rescue! We rarely hear of a successful data recovery on media files but this was a data drive, yes? You could help future users who suffer catastrophic drive failures by posting your contractor and the cost if you want to share that information.
bogiesan

Unix Executable file - How do I open

I have a Software DVD ( Route 66 Road Planner ) and want to install onto my New Macbook, problem is I can't. I know it is an "Unix Executable file" ( Apple - i keys give me that information ) I do know that on my old iMac G4 it opens no problem using VISE and I'm using 10.4.10, any reason why I can't open this on my Macbook ?
Can I open it ? If so how ?
Thanks to all.
Steve

It probably requires X11. X11 is not installed by default in OS X. It is on the install cds though as an optional install.

Applications only open with Unix Executable File!

Safari and three other applications hang.
I've tried a bunch of tricks to get them working right with no real success.
I can run Safari (and others) by opening the Unix Executable File in the .App bundle!?
*Can anyone explain to me why this works?
The applications also open fine in Safe Mode.
Any help would be great! Thanks!
More Detail Here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18176135?ac_cid=142432#18176135

Afer lots of struggling with this, I finally rebuilt Launch Services with OnyX and all is well again.
Probably my fault for messing around with the FileSystem to often experimenting with this and that.
With any luck this might hlep someone else too!
Hackintoshes are computers too!

How open old Appleworks documents that appear as UNIX executable files?

A few of my old Appleworks or Clarisworks files won't open with Appleworks 6, but show up as a "UNIX executable file." I have tried adding the ".cwk" extension, repairing permissions using Disk Utility, and using Finder>File>Get info>Open to choose Apleworks 6 (it already was selected) as recommended by Peggy. With ".cwk" extension, I then get "that file appears to be damaged and cannot be opened."
Any other suggestions?

Hi Cloyd G,
welcome to Apple Discussions and the AppleWorks forum.
The 'UNIX executable file' classification error appears to arise mostly from the lack of a suffix (.cwk) on the original file. If adding the .cwk suffix does not make the file readable by AppleWorks, and gives a 'file appears to be damaged' message, then it's likely that the file has indeed been damaged.
If it's a word processor file, you could try opening it in a Text editor (such as Text Edit, supplied with OS X, or Text Wrangler, available free from Bare Bones Software). You'll get a large amount of junk (file meta data and formatting codes, etc.) with the text of your document somewhere in the middle. If you know a single word that is in (or is likely to be in) the document, a search using command-F should take you directly there. Copy the text and paste it into a new AW document.
For spreadsheet files, you can try dragging the file and dropping it onto a new, empty spreadsheet document. The same technique may also work for database files. I've never tried or seen recommended the same texchnique for Draw or Paint files, but attemptng it should do no harm.
Best of luck with this.
Regards,
Barry

Opening a Unix Executable File

I am a Mac newbie, switching from PC. I do embroidery digitizing and downloaded several embroidery designs in "zipped" format. When I viewed them in the Get Info dialog, they were listed as Unix Executable Files. When I tried to open one, a dialog box came up saying that I needed to choose a file to open them with. What program or helper app do I choose?
Respectfully,
Patricia

Sometimes ZIP files are made into self-expanding .exe files. When run on a PC, they will unzip without needing any unzipping software. They will not do this on a Mac, but Stuffit Expander may work with them
<http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/>

Unix Executable Files...why won't they open?

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