Accessing hidden files?
 

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.

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

No dice on that one.

Thanks though!

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.

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

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.

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.