.pages file extension keeps being added even with Automatic Extension toggled off

Read through the threads of this preceding post: .pages and .numbers filename extensions c… - Apple Community

The Finder Settings > Advanced > Show all filename extensions, when not selected, has nothing to do with hiding file extensions.

The Apple product team has designed Pages, Numbers, and Keynote to check if a file extension has been previously suppressed by the Finder Get Info panel, and if so, does not change that extended file attribute when opening and saving that document. New documents, when saved, will always show the file extension as that is how Apple has chosen to code these applications.

There is nothing you can do about this shown file extension when saving new documents other than subsequently using the Finder Get Info panel to deliberately hide the extension.

This is ridiculous. Unacceptable. It has to be an error in the newest version. It makes a mess out of Finder list. Should be fixed!!!

This is happening with me too with all of the iWork applications: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. At first, I thought the file would have two extensions on it, such as:

somefile.pages.pages

But, when I open up terminal and do a ls, it shows just .pages on the file and not a duplicate .pages extension. Oddly, when I rename the file in finder to remove the .pages extension, it doesn't seem to affect the filename when I check it in Terminal. If I use the mv command on the terminal to rename the file without .pages, then it does indeed remove the extension and Finder doesn't recognize it as a .pages file. So, I wonder if the name with .pages is being stored in some sort of cache?

It is certainly annoying for me because I have a couple shortcuts that will turn these files into PDFs, but they use the filename they see in Finder (not on the actual filesystem) to create the PDF. So if I have a file called a.pages and in Finder it shows the extension, a.pages, then it becomes a.pages.pdf, which is annoying. I did try clearing the cache in Finder (~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Finder/) but that did not have an impact.

I hope Apple fixes this soon.

There is nothing to fix. The current versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote automatically save their respective documents with an extension. There is no overriding that issue. That Finder Settings > Advanced panel has nothing to do with removing file extensions from any file. These Apple applications are designed to write extensions on their documents and neither you nor anyone here can change that application design.

The operating system maintains a database of file extensions with the default and preferred applications that can open files with those extensions. Strip the extension from a document and it becomes an orphan that the operating system will not know how to open, and assigns it the black and green Exec Terminal icon. Don't do this.

Stop trying to force Windows Explorer views of extensionless files on macOS Finder or Terminal file names. Use macOS and Apple's applications as they are intended.

The shortcuts that I use to automate the conversion of the first paragraph documents into PDF do not include the original document extension in the naming process. The wrong code in those shortcuts can make you believe the problem lies elsewhere but the author of the shortcut should look closer at their coding practice.

Just to be clear, I was not talking about Windows. I really don't know what that behavior is like since I haven't used Windows in over a decade. I haven't seen anyone argue of getting rid of the extension on the file from the filesystem.

What I have seen though is people looking to have Finder appropriately hide the extension, like it has done in the past, and now there is something obviously wrong with that feature. It is not "wrong code" in the shortcut or people trying to "force Windows Explorer". It is a functionality of the operating system that has changed and @VikingOSX trying to argue with people that they are wrong is not helpful.

I just took some time to check Pages 5.6.2 on El Capitan, Pages v7.3 and 8.1 on High Sierra, and Pages v10.1 on Mojave. There was a check box in the Pages Save/Save As Accessory panel to Hide Extension up through High Sierra, and it was removed with Pages v10.1 on Mojave. I didn't check but the same likely is true with the respective Numbers and Keynote applications for those operating systems. It has not occurred with any Pages, Numbers, or Keynote version five years afterward.

As I have state before, this is a long removed application design feature from the Pages application and about 5 lines of Objective-C (then) or Swift (now) to hide the extension. Apple chose to remove it for some design reasoning and would have to re-introduce this code to provide the feature you want. The chances of that happening in 2025 after being absent this long would be close to zero.

I previously posted in the Pages community how to batch export 1 or more Pages documents to either PDF or Word. No "pages" in the exported filename.

mediummac wrote:

Sorry to disagree, @VikingOSX, but there is still something to fix. A bunch of us don't want our documents to be saved with an extension. It never used to be like that.

It was always like that.

Well, maybe not "always". In the really ancient times, back in Mac OS days circa 1984, Macintosh files actually didn't have extensions. Sharing files with PC users was a nightmare. The file type was saved in metadata files that PC users couldn't read.

But since then, Apple migrated to a more compatible typing system based on the file name extension. And technically speaking, they don't even do that anymore. Now they use a "Universal Type", one of whose attributes is the file extension.

This other thread that you helpfully directed me to earlier has several more people patiently waiting for an improvement!

That's always a bad idea. People never wait patiently. Nor should they with a situation like this that 1) isn't going to ever be fixed, and 2) isn't actually broken.

Keeping my fingers crossed over here!

Wouldn't you prefer to use those fingers to just fix the problem? I guess not, better just keep them crossed.

I have noticed this same change. I have files of serially duplicated documents that did not have the .pages extension in the past, but as I save the newest version of the document, from the last several weeks, there is now a .pages extension added to the name. I have been using MacBooks for 13 years, never saved documents with .pages in the name, never had documents show up with .pages in the name, but now, in the last few weeks, documents are showing up with .pages in the name. There is, in reality, a distinct change in how the files are being named, and it's not coming from me. I believe that some of the people in this thread are trying to point out this change, and to find a way to make the MacBook stop adding .pages to the names we are choosing for our documents. If I wanted .pages in the name, I would include that in the document name. If anyone has a solution, that would be helpful.

I've had the same issue. Apple automatically started displaying the file extension despite the setting being unchecked. I'm not a fan. You can see from the screenshot that it started for me on June 1st. I'd like to get rid of it. Any help getting this to go away would be appreciated.

I have also experienced this sudden change; however, it has managed to fix itself.

I believe it’s a setting in iCloud Drive: ⇣

Good luck! 👋🏼😉

Like all of you, this issue is annoying for me. I also observed that the file extension also shows on all other computers connected on the same iCloud account.

Before I would debate about if the feature of hiding the file extension has been removed or not, I would first first consider these facts:

· with files that we don't modify, it is still possible any time to mask or unmask the file extension

· with files stored on local folders (not on iCloud folders), even modified files still keep their file extension masked

Suggesting that we did not loose any feature, or this "option" has not been removed.

I have also observed these:

· in my case, Pages, Numbers and Keynote do not force me to save with the file extension visible (I guess this is

something I have set up initially), other users should be able to do the same

· the issue also happens with most file types (ie, .png, .pdf, .docx, .xlsx, .rtf, and more), and not only the

iWork series (.pages, .numbers, .key)

· when moving a file from a local folder to an iCloud folder, the file extension appears temporarily, then disappears;

it is like the synchronization process needs to unmask before doing its job; the same happens when renaming

· after saving a file to a iCloud folder, the file is then synchronized to iCloud, like for moving or renaming, the file

extension appears during that time, but it does not re-mask when done

That let me believe that something may not be happening as it should during the synchronization process, and this is why we have this issue.

My setting in my iCloud is also set to off. I don't write code or really know the first thing about it, but it seems like this has to be something within the latest update that changed it to show up this way.