How do I open a folder marked exec?

hi! i have the same problem with a folder. can you help me?

Is it actually a folder?

Copy and paste this into the Terminal, then drag the folder into the Terminal window and hit return.

ls -aleO@

Post the output of the command.

If this is a folder, you cannot use it as a shell command

"/Volumes/BHAVESH/Swt MeMor's 2k177/mauritius"

What I'm seeing in your screen shot appears that you did a drag and drop of your Folder from the Finder to a Terminal session, and then typed

; exit

If it was your goal to use this folder as part of a command, you need to have a command as the first word on the command line. Maybe you intended to say

cd /Volumes/BHAVESH/Swt\ MeMor\'s\ 2k177/mauritius ; exit

Of course I do not know why you would want to do that, but the shell is expecting a command at the first token. 'cd' (change directory) is a command that is often used with folders path's in a Terminal session. I would have expected something like:

cd /Volumes/BHAVESH/Swt\ MeMor\'s\ 2k177/mauritius

ls

I guess the real question is. What do you want to do with this folder from a Terminal session? That will help craft a useful answer, rather than guessing what you were trying to do based on error messages.

Usually, the black and green “exec” files are documents that have been orphaned from their original opening application. As you mention these documents are 16 years old, that rules out Pages documents — but they may very well be ClarisWorks/AppleWorks, or something else.

If you have a recent version of LibreOffice installed, it will open AppleWorks documents via a double-click.

sorry for previous image its not full..currently i can see this..please help me..these are important files..they are pictures and images in this folder..

Somehow your computer thinks these are executable files, and not pages files. It would be helpful to look at the files in the Finder to see what they are first:

1. open a finder window (click on the finder icon at the far left of your dock)
2. navigate to the files in question
3. select one of the files
4. control click on it and scroll down to Get Info
5. under General, see what it says for Kind:
6. under Name & Extension, see what it says

If they do not have an extension, and they have the executable bit set, that is what they will look like.

Right-click, Open with..., All Applications, Pages

or, Open Pages and use the Open command in Finder.

Or, in Finder, select the file, hit return, then add an extension that is appropriate: .pages for Pages, .doc or .docx for Word, .txt for Text, etc.

Then, try double-clicking.

There isn't an extension for "unix executable." The POSIX permissions have three modes for each of three types of access. One of those modes is Execute.

If the files do not have extensions, and the executable bit is set, then they are displayed in the Finder as executable files.

If they are pages files, rename them and add a .pages extension to the file.

I ignored the "folder" reference in your subject because you stated in the question they are actually Pages files.

If they are indeed folders, that changes things a bit.

Do you have any backups of the files?

Copy and paste the following into Terminal, leave a space after the line of text, then drag one of the documents onto the Terminal window and let go.

Then, hit return. If when you paste in the command, it runs and puts up a prompt like you saw at first, just arrow up once and the command will return.

ls -al@

Please post the output; just copy and paste.

Hi. I've been hanging your thread (above)

Trying to open files that are 16 years old.

The files are black boxes with the "exec" in green at top left

They do not have extensions, of course, and following your advice, I tried adding various extensions- without success.

I'd like to try your last suggestion: "copy and paste into the Terminal" but I don't know what a Terminal is... I'm in the US and you may be in the UK. Are you referring to the URL address bar?

thanks!

bhwrites wrote:

Hi. I've been hanging your thread (above)

Trying to open files that are 16 years old.

The command I posted will do nothing to determine the type of file you have. It was only meant to determine if the OP's "files" were actually folders.

Try opening your files with TextEdit. If that won't open them, then try TextWrangler from BareBones software.

Both will not open the files in any readable format, but they might give a hint as to what file type they are.

Once thing you might see is two sets of four characters all together near the beginning of the file. For example, you might see SmtxTEXT.

You might not find that "signature," so you'd just have to look for other types of info that might help identify the creator and type. However, if it is a proprietary file format, you may never find anything that will open them.

Ohhh. Okay. Mine are files. Thanks for that clarification

As per your suggestion I opened with TextEdit and --mixed in with the symbols— there is readable type, and YAY! it will serve my purpose. Thank you so much. Also I selected the “change all” option (under get info) so now all 30 or so of these old “exec” files will be changed to TextEdit.app files. Wonderful thanks again!

hi! i have the same problem with a folder. can you help me?

it is folder