Where are my iWeb files located? My Domain folder is empty but the pages still open in iWeb.

I have a Macbook Pro OSX 10.6.8. iWeb opens all my pages and the website is fine. When I look for the page files so that i can edit them in Text Edit I cannot find them.

I have searched EVERY file folder etc. on my computer including the Domain folder which shows empty.

So my question is - Where are they and how do I access them?

Posted on Sep 13, 2012 2:59 AM

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14 replies

Sep 13, 2012 3:32 AM in response to Maxandshe

To be able to edit files in Text Edit to do with iWeb, you need to publish them first. A text editor means editing the html and since iWeb does not produce this until you publish, then you'll have to publish your site to a local folder first.


Other than that, all your iWeb content lives in your domain.sites file which is stored under your User/Library/Application Support/iWeb/domain.sites. Remember to look in your User Library and not your System Library as the files are not there. Double click on your domain file and iWeb will open it, but remember that there is no html in this file - you have to publish first.


If you can't find your domain file then try a Spotlight search.

Sep 13, 2012 4:22 AM in response to Maxandshe

Thanks. The problem is that the site has been upladed and in use for some time. The files were always there in the Domain/iWeb folder as you say but now they atre not. There is only one file in there which is a package. When i open the package contents it has a multitude of files and folders but none that can be opened like the ones that were previously in the Domain/iWeb folder. I have up loaded the whole site again, restarted my computer but I still only have the package file in the Domain folder. I am not using iDisk as a host I'm using Godaddy. Any suggestion?

Sep 13, 2012 4:27 AM in response to Maxandshe

You said 'iWeb opens all my pages and the website is fine'. If iWeb is showing your site when you open it and will publish it then that is what you should be doing. To edit the html pages you would have to download them from the server, but you don't want to be doing that - the coding is very complicated and beyond the simplest alterations to the text you will find it very difficult to edit them.


If iWeb is indeed opening your site, then it doesn't really matter where the Domain file is since you wouldn't normally be doing anything with it anyway (most iWeb users aren't even aware of its existence).

Sep 13, 2012 4:42 AM in response to Maxandshe

As you can tell from my question I am no expert. The things I have done in the past have been to open a page file in text edit and put in the code for a PayPal button. Right now I want to change the Meta tags. Thats why I want to find the files and open them up in Text Edit. Everything is normal except that the files and folders are no longer in my computer (visible that is)

Sep 13, 2012 8:08 AM in response to Maxandshe

The files and folder of an iWeb '09 site are never on your computer: they are created during the upload process. If you have iWeb '08 or earlier you would have to have published to a local folder and uploaded it manually. If you really want to edit your html pages and you don't have the locally published folder you will have to download them from the server - or publish to a folder again in iWeb if it can open your site.

Sep 13, 2012 10:32 AM in response to Ethmoid

The OP is reffering to the iWeb Domain package and wants add meta data also.


If you don't want to pay for iWeb SEO Tool, now that its no longer free, you need to post edit anyway.


You actually get a better, faster loading page when adding code to the HTML file rather than a snippet which creates yet another html doc. That way you can also make sure that all the java scripts are down at the bottom just before the closing body tag where they should be.

Sep 13, 2012 10:49 AM in response to Maxandshe

I understand how iWeb normally works and where the files are normally stored. The situation I have is that my files are stored in iWeb in a file called Domain which is not a file folder but a 'package'. The package files are in a format that I can't access to edit.

I have opened iWeb and saved my site into a local folder and then tried various ways to get iWeb to open that folder (including putting the aforementioned 'domain' file in the trash). Despite naming the new folder domain and so forth, iWeb will not open it and just keeps asking me to start a new Domain. This involves rebuilding the multitude of pages on my site from scratch. So I have reverted back to using the Domain package file as before and can use iWeb again as normal.

BUT my original problem remains. I cannot access the page files in html format and open them in Text Edit like I could before because they are not accessable in the 'normal' iWeb way. Any more ideas please?

Sep 13, 2012 11:01 AM in response to Maxandshe

iWeb's Domain file does not contain the html pages: it contains a lot of data, specific to iWeb, from which it will build the html pages when publishing. You can't tamper with this data.


iWeb cannot open html files so it doesn't matter what you do about renaming a folder to which you have published; iWeb will not open it.


If you want to edit html files you must either:


a) Publish to a local folder (note: Publish, not Save), locate the pages, open them in TextEdit and edit them, save them, then manually upload them to the server; or


b) Publish using the FTP facility in iWeb '09, then download the relevant pages, edit them, and re-upload them.

Sep 14, 2012 2:31 PM in response to Maxandshe

Download and use Find Any File to search for ".sites". FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't and if you have a second domain file on your HD FAF will find it.


If you want to access the HTML files of your website then you need to publish your website to a folder on your hard drive. With iWeb 2 that's done with the File ➙ Publish to a Folder menu option.

User uploaded file


With iWeb 3 that's done by clicking on the site folder in iWeb and selecting the folder you want to publish toi:

User uploaded file

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Where are my iWeb files located? My Domain folder is empty but the pages still open in iWeb.

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