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Mechcozmo

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 17, 2004
5,215
2
So I was attempting to save something to my desktop and while navigating to it through my home directory I noticed that it wasn't... there. But all my stuff IS showing up on my desktop.

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You can see that the Desktop still shows in the sidebar, but not in the main window. :confused:
 

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few things i would try....

restart finder
log out and back in
restart
repair permissions? (not sure if it would even help)


other than that, the desktop is basically just a folder in your home folder, so i suppose you could just recreate it, but i would be cautious and wait and see what others say about that
 
PlaceofDis said:
few things i would try....

restart finder
log out and back in
restart
repair permissions? (not sure if it would even help)


other than that, the desktop is basically just a folder in your home folder, so i suppose you could just recreate it, but i would be cautious and wait and see what others say about that

I repaired permissions, and then restarted, which had the effect of restarted the finder and logging out and back in (the restart).

But see, my desktop is still THERE. I can press Command+D and save stuff to it. I can click on the Sidebar and go there. It just isn't in my home folder....
 
Mechcozmo said:
I repaired permissions, and then restarted, which had the effect of restarted the finder and logging out and back in (the restart).

But see, my desktop is still THERE. I can press Command+D and save stuff to it. I can click on the Sidebar and go there. It just isn't in my home folder....

i checked the path of the desktop folder on my computer it is

Computer>Hard drive>Users>Home Folder>Desktop


so basically your desktop folder has been hidden in your home folder, this is why i feel like you should almost be able to just create a new folder in your home and just name it "Desktop" and be okay, but then again i am not sure

what i am tryiing to figure out is where else you can find your desktop folder so you can add it back to your home folder, seems that there is no other location for it though
 
Vader said:
Sorry, scratch that last post, do the search from your user folder.

I got this...
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The highlighted one is in a Caches folder.

:confused:
 

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Vader said:
That is very weird!

Well, take it and put it back in your home folder.

Take it FROM WHERE!?!?!?!

I don't know where that folder thing went. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered posted and would have just moved it back myself. But it is gone. Disappeared. Kaput. But it still works. :confused: :confused:
 
Mechcozmo said:
Take it FROM WHERE!?!?!?!

I don't know where that folder thing went. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered posted and would have just moved it back myself. But it is gone. Disappeared. Kaput. But it still works. :confused: :confused:

I think he means take the folder that's in your caches and drag it into your home directory.

Mechcozmo, if you go in Terminal and ls -la in your home directory, do you still see a desktop folder in there? I think you should, since you can save stuff there....
 
mkrishnan said:
I think he means take the folder that's in your caches and drag it into your home directory.

Mechcozmo, if you go in Terminal and ls -la in your home directory, do you still see a desktop folder in there? I think you should, since you can save stuff there....


Actually, yes...
Code:
drwx------  18 mechcozmo  mechcozmo    612 14 Mar 21:59 Desktop

Also shows up with just ls, too. :confused:
 
Show Hidden Files

Well, I'm no expert, but I wonder if you could use a shareware app or terminal to make hidden files (which, I believe, have a ".name" name) visible???? Maybe it's still there but somehow got that little period in front of the name and became invisible in the Finder? Anyone?
 
jsalzer said:
Well, I'm no expert, but I wonder if you could use a shareware app or terminal to make hidden files (which, I believe, have a ".name" name) visible???? Maybe it's still there but somehow got that little period in front of the name and became invisible in the Finder? Anyone?

Well, based on the ls output, it doesn't seem to be a dotfile at the moment, although that's a really good idea. Does anyone know if repair permissions definitely checks/repairs the permissions of this folder? If not, try chmod 700 Desktop from the user directory and see if that helps.... (700 for drwx-------).

Of course, the wrong permissions shouldn't make a file or directory invisible.... :(
 
mkrishnan said:
Well, based on the ls output, it doesn't seem to be a dotfile at the moment, although that's a really good idea. Does anyone know if repair permissions definitely checks/repairs the permissions of this folder? If not, try chmod 700 Desktop from the user directory and see if that helps.... (700 for drwx-------).

Of course, the wrong permissions shouldn't make a file or directory invisible.... :(

Well, I have a surprise for everyone!

attachment.php


Whaddya think? It IS a hidden file! But... uh... how did it get that way and how can I get it back and :confused:
 

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ok, well can you get its info and see if that does any good?

i really am at loss as to how to permanently un-hide hidden files like this, a search over on macosxhints didnt show anything useful either.....

ill see what else i might be able to come up with though
 
attachment.php


Yup. Looks fine to me. BTW, permissions repair came up clean so I didn't bother to expand those.
 

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Simple Solution First

Hey, I'm all about trying for the simple answers first. Before anyone gets all terminally on us, have you tried maybe clicking on the word "Desktop" under the icon, letting the entire word highlight itself, deleting it (potentially deleting some hidden period before the word) and retyping "Desktop" in its place. Maybe it'll come back?????

Again, not an expert, but it's worth a try!
 
jsalzer said:
Again, not an expert, but it's worth a try!

Didn't work... it didn't SHOW a period there, (other files have visible periods in front of them) but..... :confused:
 
I realized when I read this thread and played around with Finder last night, that I don't know of any other hidden file mechanism for OS X besides dotfiles. Is there another one?
 
mkrishnan said:
I realized when I read this thread and played around with Finder last night, that I don't know of any other hidden file mechanism for OS X besides dotfiles. Is there another one?

Not that I know of. That's why I'm kinda lost. Think AppleCare could help? I do have the 3-year plan with them.

Its really, well, weird. Any UNIX commands that may help?
 
Mechcozmo said:
Not that I know of. That's why I'm kinda lost. Think AppleCare could help? I do have the 3-year plan with them.

Its really, well, weird. Any UNIX commands that may help?

i dont know any UNIX commands that would help, but since you did pay for the three year Apple care its worth a shot, maybe they have come up against this before, i know i havent....
 
BTW, what is that application that you were using to change the Finder preferences? Or if its system prefs, why do the buttons on the top of your system prefs window look so much different than mine?

LOL, this is a good enigma, although I think you should call Applecare too. :) I think I had a dream about this, which is well, really weird! :p
 
mkrishnan said:
BTW, what is that application that you were using to change the Finder preferences? Or if its system prefs, why do the buttons on the top of your system prefs window look so much different than mine?

LOL, this is a good enigma, although I think you should call Applecare too. :) I think I had a dream about this, which is well, really weird! :p

I'm using Cocktail. Under Interface, Show hidden files. System Preferences can't do that...

Alrighty AppleCare it is! I'll report what they tell me so that all of you can learn and get some closure on this subject.

And if you are dreaming about this... eh... nevermind. ;)
 
One more thing, its been awhile since I've used a Mac like this but if you can make the Desktop folder show up on a Windows machine, you should be able to right click on it and change it from hidden to visible and (possibly) have it be visible on the Mac as well. I did this with the iPod_Control folder on my iPod which is hidden without a dot and it worked perfectly.

-Ani
 
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