Item “2.jpg” is used by OS X and can’t be opened.

Select the text on the line below by dragging across it. Don't include the blank space at the end of the line. Only the text should be highlighted.

ls -@Oeln

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window (command-V), then press the space bar.

Now switch to the Finder and and select one of the items in question. Drag into the Terminal window. More text will be added to what you entered.

Click in the Terminal window to activate it, then press return.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.

Post any lines of output that appear below what you entered — the text, please, not a screenshot.

Back up all data, including all data on the external drive.

This procedure will remove all special Finder attributes, including custom icons, from the items in question. If an item is a folder, all its contents will be modified in the same way. If you don't want that to happen, or you're not sure whether you do, STOP.

Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

xattr -d -r com.apple.FinderInfo /V*/external/pictures

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear below what you entered. You can then quit Terminal. Test.

The file that you used as an example is empty. If that one is, then perhaps they all are. You would have to restore them from a backup.

I have the same problem, researched and found several old posts all the way back to 2008 on this very same topic but none of the conclusions apply to my situation:

I have pictures and movie files stored on a NAS (external HD) and on a local HD.

Some folders have grayed out image and/or movie files, there are hundreds of them

They are all dated January 24, 1984, 3 AM

What I am able to do

I can single click on them in Finder and the little preview within Finder shows the image

I can right click and say "quick view" and the movie file will play

I am able to open preview and go via the menu to open the files and I can see them there

What I am not able to do

I am unable to open, copy etc. through finder, i.e. by double clicking or dragging them to another destination

When I say "open with>preview" I get the message "...is used by OS X and cannot be opened"

I am unable to insert them into documents

I am unable to attach them to an email or similar web upload

What I have tried

Reboot the NAS

Reboot all computers accessing it (though our old one where we managed a lot of the photos recently died)

In EasyFind it shows these files as 'brok'

I have not tried the above because I dont understand the commands and worry that it will wipe out the pix based on the last exchange here.

Its concerning but mostly really annoying that I dont have full control over them.

Has anyone found a solution? Is Apple aware of this?

I appreciate your input.

I found a solution and it looks similar to the one above.

in Terminal paste this string replacing the path with the path to your files.

mdfind -onlyin /Volumes/mounteddrive/your/path/here/ -0 "kMDItemFSTypeCode==brok && kMDItemFSCreatorCode==MACS" | xargs -0 -n1 xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo

It looks for files that meet a certain condition. The condition that they are locked by Finder indicated by brok and MACS. It then removes the finder attributes to set it back to the right file type.

to see if the external drive is mounted use

df -h

worked for me.

Thanks dude! This did the trick.

thank you for your help. It's been a great relief for me to be able to use the files I couldn't