Where is image stored that I added as Desktop Background?

I accidentally hit a keyboard shortcut & made some photo my desktop background.


I want to find where this photo resides on my Mac & delete it. 


Can’t find it. It is not named (by me) IDK if it is JPG, GIF, etc.


I have looked in the folder that I use for my many photos that I Do use for desktop backgrounds. (My Mac is set to change image every day.)

It is not there.


How I did this…


I was C/P small images re car maintenance into a Pages doc.


Somehow one of these small images became my desktop background.

It was blown way up to be unrecognizable but, when I changed Safari Desktop Picture setting from Fill Desktop to center, it changed to normal size (~ ½ “) & now I know what it is.


I don’t want that image to be in the group that can become a desktop background. So, I want to find where it “lives” & delete it.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Dec 21, 2018 9:27 PM

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5 replies

Dec 22, 2018 2:35 AM in response to growler62000

I thought this would be an easy question.

W/O knowing the name of the image, I cannot search my Mac for it.


I caused this with an accidental keyboard command (probably option-Cmd + ???)


I frequently use option-Cmd + V to paste something I just copied onto my clipboard to keep the format the same in my document.


In this case I must have hit a wrong key which resulted in my making that image my desktop background instead of pasting it into my document.


So the image has no name & I wish to delete it.

Dec 22, 2018 4:38 AM in response to VikingOSX

I appreciate the attempt to help me with this issue. After so many hours w/o any replies & few views, I got tired of looking at that image as desktop background. So, I manually selected one of my 5K images from my desktop image folder to replace it. 

I do know how to launch script editor.app. (In Application/Utilities folder)

I don’t use Launchpad. I now see it is an alternative way to search for an app.


If I c/p :

“tell application "System Events"


picture of its desktop as text


end tell”


w/o the quote marks

(Not sure about the different color fonts & paragraph indentation for 2nd line)


I don’t know what “the POSIX path” means.

Does it just mean the file path?

Such as “MacintoshHD/Users/name/Documents”


Anyway, if I correctly did as you suggest now, I assume it will tell me the file path to my current desktop image …which I already know.

Probably hopeless for me to find where that other image is lurking.


But, if you know what the exact keyboard shortcut is to click on an image & make that image the desktop background, I can recreate what I had done with a known JPEG  & then search for it by name & where it is copied, I’ll probably find that no name, accidental image as well & I can delete both of them.


Thanks!

Dec 22, 2018 6:01 AM in response to growler62000

You would copy/paste the exact content as I posted into the Script Editor. The color coding in my post is the new hosting software's attempt (cough) at a color scheme, and this would be ignored when c/p into Script Editor, and either compiled/run, or just run.


POSIX path is just another name for the venerable UNIX path format: /Users/yourname/Desktop/image.png.


There is already a Service installed by the operating system to Set Desktop Picture. By default, it does not have a keyboard shortcut assigned, but you can remedy that — if you do not use an existing assigned shortcut. System Preferences : Keyboard Shortcuts : Services panel. You right-click on an image, and then Services ▸ Set Desktop Picture.

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Where is image stored that I added as Desktop Background?

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