Hi, on my Mac I am not able to open jpeg photos on a flash drive that were download from a Window Pc. I had this problem over a year ago and I found something on google that worked but now I cannot find the instructions again on google, I should have bookmarked it and remembered how to do it but I didn't.
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Photos downloaded from Windows Pc onto a flash drive won't open on Mac
- Thread starter Sean.R
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connect the usb-stick to your Mac. Open it after mounting in the finder. Select one JPEG and open the information panel (
⌘ + i ) and check the file size , lock state and access rights and change/correct them. You can do this for multiple selected files or you select the folder they’re in and change the rights for it and all included files and subfolders.
Yup, know exactly what it is. It's broken. The next step would be to fix it.
Replies like the one above this one really help, don't they?
OP:
Try this. No promises.
1. Connect the USB flash drive to the Mac
2. Let the icon for the flash drive mount on the desktop
3. Click ONE TIME on the icon to select it
4. Bring up the "get info" box (type command-i)
5. At the bottom of get info, click the lock and enter your Mac password
6. Put a checkmark into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
7. Close get info.
See if the pics will open now.
(this is to overcome "permissions problems" between the PC and the Mac)
TIP for the future:
If you want to move some pics to the Mac, connect the flashdrive, and try the permissions workaround above.
But then... CREATE A NEW FOLDER on the desktop.
Give it any name you like.
(I generally give mine a name for the date of import, such as "2023.8.23 house")
Now, you need to open the USB flashdrive and locate where the pics are.
Select them with the pointer. You can hold down the command key and click on several to select them if you wish. Then...
DRAG AND DROP them into the NEW FOLDER you created on the desktop.
Now open (or import) them from that folder.
If you use your home folder to organize personal data, you could move this folder into the "Pictures" folder in your user account.
(I don't, I just keep mine in a "media" partition on my drive)
Hope this helps.
OP:
Try this. No promises.
1. Connect the USB flash drive to the Mac
2. Let the icon for the flash drive mount on the desktop
3. Click ONE TIME on the icon to select it
4. Bring up the "get info" box (type command-i)
5. At the bottom of get info, click the lock and enter your Mac password
6. Put a checkmark into "ignore ownership on this volume" (sharing and permissions)
7. Close get info.
See if the pics will open now.
(this is to overcome "permissions problems" between the PC and the Mac)
TIP for the future:
If you want to move some pics to the Mac, connect the flashdrive, and try the permissions workaround above.
But then... CREATE A NEW FOLDER on the desktop.
Give it any name you like.
(I generally give mine a name for the date of import, such as "2023.8.23 house")
Now, you need to open the USB flashdrive and locate where the pics are.
Select them with the pointer. You can hold down the command key and click on several to select them if you wish. Then...
DRAG AND DROP them into the NEW FOLDER you created on the desktop.
Now open (or import) them from that folder.
If you use your home folder to organize personal data, you could move this folder into the "Pictures" folder in your user account.
(I don't, I just keep mine in a "media" partition on my drive)
Hope this helps.
As a Windows user, the LNK files you have are just shortcuts, they are just pointer files to the actual files/folders... They are not JPEG files that you were trying to save... They will only work while you have the drive connected to the Windows computer...
It seems to me that what you did is select/highlight the files/folders then selected send to [create shortcut] by mistake which is what is showing on your screenshot... What you should have done is performed a manual copy of the files/folders and copied to your flash/external drive...
Where are the files/photos located? Are they saved on the local or cloud storage?
Once you have determined which folders the files/photos you want to copy are located, open File Explorer [macOS counterpart of Finder] and highlight/select all the files/folders that you want to copy and then either open a new File Explorer window for the flash/external drive and select paste...
The drive was formatted as FAT32... If there are files larger than 4GB, they will not be saved to your flash/external drive... Another possibility that only LNK files, also known as shortcuts (pointer files) in Windows, show in your drive, your Windows computer may have been infected with malware and the flash/external drive as well...
Since you have filename extensions enabled on Finder, once you have the correct files/folders saved, it should be similar to the screenshot on the link below... Instead of PNG, they should show as JPEG if that is the file extension...
How to quickly find all screenshots on your Mac
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I understand what you are saying here but the thing is I was able to do it a year or 2 ago, I typed something into google and something came up with instructions on what to do in that situation and then I was able to view all of my photos in that flash drive. If I remember correctly those LNK files turned into folders that I was able to view after I followed the instructions and I was able to view all of the photos. I tried to search up the instructions again last night on google and couldn't find the instructions that I had found over a year or so ago
That's because those were shortcuts that pointed to said folders. If you don't have the flash drive connected to the original machine, those shortcuts then become broken and don't go anywhere. You'll need to connect the drive back into that Windows PC and then copy over the actual photos to it.
OP:
As others have very knowledgeably pointed out, there aren't really any PICTURES on that flash drive you have -- only Windows "shortcuts" (which I think are "aliases" on the Mac).
You've got to go back and get the original drive that held the pics, and copy them from it.
Is the computer with the pictures on it still in existence?
If the PC and the drive is no longer available to you, might as well forget it, the shortcuts probably lead nowhere...
As others have very knowledgeably pointed out, there aren't really any PICTURES on that flash drive you have -- only Windows "shortcuts" (which I think are "aliases" on the Mac).
You've got to go back and get the original drive that held the pics, and copy them from it.
Is the computer with the pictures on it still in existence?
If the PC and the drive is no longer available to you, might as well forget it, the shortcuts probably lead nowhere...
Reformat the flash drive to exFAT so you can use it as a go-between Windows and Mac.
Edit: ONLY do this if you still have the original files on the PC somewhere, formatting the flash drive will erase it.
Edit: ONLY do this if you still have the original files on the PC somewhere, formatting the flash drive will erase it.
Their drive is FAT32, which is an older format, but it works with Macs just fine. The issue is that they don't have the files on the drive at all, just shortcuts.
First, you need to figure out where exactly your photos are stored. As mentioned several times previously, your screenshot is showing shortcuts. The .lnk files are not your photos.
There are two things that could have happened here:
- The photos are stored somewhere else on the flash drive, and these shortcuts are pointed to that location but macOS doesn't know how to read Windows shortcuts. You would need to browse to the actual location where they're stored.
- The photos are actually still on the Windows PC and weren't transferred to the flash drive. These shortcuts are pointed to the location on the PC and appear as if they are on the flash drive...but they're really not.
Alternatively, right-click one of the .lnk files and open with TextEdit. Parts of it will be jumbled text, but you should be able to see the path where the shortcut is pointed to.
One other thing to try... It looks like you do have about 86GB worth of files on the flash drive, which certainly wouldn't be from the .lnk files. Try pressing Command + Shift + . (period) to show/hide the hidden files. Perhaps they are hidden.
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