Can finder do this?

[astro73]

I am looking for a particular video file that was saved on one of several older hard drives. I have copied these entire hard drives onto one 4 TB external drive that is connected to my Mac mini 2. I don't remember the name of the file, and only know it was created in a range of time between 1999-2003. I also know it was a .avi extension at one point.

Here’s the issue. Somewhere along the way, multiple files (including the file I am searching for) had their extensions changed from .avi to something else (.docx, .xlsx, .pdf, .csv). So with no filename or extension, this means I am looking for a needle in a 3-4 TB haystack.

Is there a way to search for this file based on its actual content or format when it could have any name and any extension?

Thank you for your help!

 

[Spotlighter9]

I would start here....

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

To search on its format when it could have any name and any extension:

Use the file utility in the Terminal application to determine file type, by looping all possible files. You will need basic terminal skill.

To narrow the haystack down, here is an idea:

1. Gather all files as long as the creation date is between 1999-2003
2. Speculate the size of that file using:
   • What recording device was used
   • The duration of the video
   • Has it been converted from its original format
   • How was the file generated
   • etc
3. Sort the candidates by file size, and go to the size range your file could possibly fit in
4. Hopefully you may see some conspicuous ones, like a spreadsheet but takes > 100MB space.

 

[astro73]

Thanks for your suggestion. I did try the approach you mention in 1-4 and it was just too much to review.

I used the finder for this, but not familiar with the file utility. Perhaps that is more powerful? I can't believe there is not a way / tool out there to scan for files in some way other than the file name or date other than brute force approach.