Trying to locate ALL video files on my iMac G4. Please Help.

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Level 1

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Trying to locate ALL video files on my iMac G4. Please Help.

So I pulled my old iMac g4 flat-panel out of the garage this past weekend, and I've been searching for a certain video file. The "movies" tab in finder doesn't have even close to all my video files in it; it only has a few. So I've been searching in finder for '.mov' '.avi' '.mpg' '.dv'....etc. I've been able to locate some of them that way, but definitely not all of them. So my question is this--how do I get all video files of all formats into one place so I can click through them to find the one I'm looking for? Is there some type of Mac trick to do this? Or a certain software? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.4)

Posted on Apr 11, 2013 10:37 AM

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Answer 1

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

Apr 11, 2013 2:34 PM in response to Tmur03

For that I would download and install the free application EasyFind:

http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/freeware.html

where allows you to specify certain file types to search for.

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Answer 2

Tmur03 Author

Level 1

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Apr 11, 2013 11:54 PM in response to Klaus1

Thanks, I tried that, but it didn't work. What I'm looking for is not a program to search by file type. I'm trying to organize ALL video types. I don't know what type of video file my video is that I'm searching for. Any other suggestions anyone?

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Answer 3

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

Apr 12, 2013 1:52 AM in response to Tmur03

'File type' is determined by the file suffix, so you will have to search for those in turn.

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Answer 4

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Apr 13, 2013 11:36 AM in response to Tmur03

The syntax is rather cryptic, but:

Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

# press return to run the command.

# in your home folder

find ~ \( -iname "*.mov" -o -iname "*.avi" -o -iname "*.mpg" -o -iname "*.dv" \) -type f -exec ls -l {} \;

I suggest copying & pasting this.

Edit in text edit.

Blanks between tokens. Blank before and after \)

-o -iname "*.avi" or filename ends with .avi

# on every volumn and all folders

sudo find / \( -iname "*.mov" -o -iname "*.avi" -o -iname "*.mpg" -o -iname "*.dv" \) -type f -exec ls -l {} \;

The sudo command will ask for your administration password. No characters will appear when typing your password. Press return when done typing. sudo stands for super user do. It's just like root. Be careful.

Robert

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