APFS file read/open

[Puiggros]

HI everyone,
I have an APFS file (about 120GB) and i dont know how to open or read that file. It is very important for me because i have like 35-40GB of photos inside.
That APFS file was from Mojave. Now I keep this file in a pendrive but no idea how to open or read. I just need to extract my photos.
Could anyone here help me?
Regards,

 

[chabig]

Your files should be visible on any Mac running Mojave or later. Plug the pen drive in. If there is just one file there that looks like an icon with a disk on it, double-click that.

 

[Puiggros]

I can't. When I put t pendrive just detect as a file .exec

 

[Puiggros]

Your files should be visible on any Mac running Mojave or later. Plug the pen drive in. If there is just one file there that looks like am icon with a disk on it, double-click that.

I can't. When I put t pendrive just detect as a file .exec not as a disk icon.

 

[chabig]

Then you have no photos on that pen drive. A file with .exec is a Windows executable file. Maybe it was once formatted for a Mac and reformatted for a PC, which would wipe the data. Or, you mistook this drive for another one, which does contain your photos.

 

[Puiggros]

Then you have no photos on that pen drive. A file with .exec is a Windows executable file. Maybe it was once formatted for a Mac and reformatted for a PC, which would wipe the data. Or, you mistook this drive for another one, which does contain your photos.

Thats what I was thinking. But the size is 120GB.

 

[Puiggros]

But I think that I have to mount that image as a disk.
I have not that level to do it.

 

[chabig]

If it actually is a disk image, it would be a PC disk image, and would not open on a Mac.

 

[bogdanw]

Maybe it was accidentally renamed, like here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/opening-exec-files-in-os-x.514622/page-2
Try to rename it to dmg and see if it opens.

 

[Puiggros]

I will try to change it as a dmg.
I will let u know if it works.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Where did this drive come from?
Did you create it?
If so...
Do you have the other Mac with the photos still on it?

 

[Puiggros]

OP:

Where did this drive come from?
Did you create it?
If so...
Do you have the other Mac with the photos still on it?

I mount a virtual machine on Windows. So for unknown reasons, the virtual machine stopped working. I jus took the apfs file.

 

[DeltaMac]

You may need to try mounting your flash drive in Windows, not Mac.
And, you should try changing the file extension to something other than APFS (which is a file system, and AFAIK not a valid file extension. I might try changing APFS to .iso, then try opening it in Windows.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
"I mount a virtual machine on Windows. So for unknown reasons, the virtual machine stopped working. I jus took the apfs file."

Are you saying you were using something like Parallels or VMWare Fusion to run Windows on the Mac, and that you did your editing (of the pics) in Windows?

And now you can't "move them over" to the Mac OS side of things?

How this flashdrive "came to be" isn't really clear...

 

[Puiggros]

OP:
"I mount a virtual machine on Windows. So for unknown reasons, the virtual machine stopped working. I jus took the apfs file."

Are you saying you were using something like Parallels or VMWare Fusion to run Windows on the Mac, and that you did your editing (of the pics) in Windows?

And now you can't "move them over" to the Mac OS side of things?

How this flashdrive "came to be" isn't really clear...

I used VirtualBox on Windows to run Mojave. Suddenly it stopped working. And I had my pics in that virtual machine. I will try to change it as a ISO.
I will try everything I can.

 

[chrfr]

I used VirtualBox on Windows to run Mojave. Suddenly it stopped working. And I had my pics in that virtual machine. I will try to change it as a ISO.
I will try everything I can.

That's an entirely different situation than you asked about. You're not trying to mount an APFS file, you're trying to mount a Virtualbox virtual machine disk. You should be able to open this by creating a new Mac virtual machine in Virtualbox and connecting the old file to the new virtual machine as a secondary disk. I don't use Virtualbox so I'm not exactly sure how this might be done.
It's not an ISO and it's not an Apple disk image so none of the suggestions to name the file accordingly will work.