Weird Hidden Folder and File on Desktop – macOS Hidden Files Explained

macos

I noticed a mysterious hidden folder on my desktop containing one hidden file. The folder's name starts with .E05268AB3AE5F72AF… and the file name starts with DF2CEE62032EFA2196B0B673…

The folder was created on July 19th 2014 and its file on October 22nd 2014

My mac is a "MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)" and I got it sometime in October 2014. So, my guess is that the folder is put on the computer when it's manufactured and the file created on the first boot.

But that's just a wild guess and doesn't explain their utility.

Do you have those on your desktop?

Do you know why they're there?

Opening the file with text edit I get this:

/MG›ÿ“.¥%Pü;Pó¸û-øa]J´âË…≠RÑ€ïÆÀ\ˇ_ÔÅJ•W›Ã†õ‘m
õ'Õ∂Ø≠{a3oP)%<U
6?ó≥$há ÄdY
¯8º◊
9ü”‘–pJÈt∞“≤L »óPØ}˝)YÄeÅôà(zk‹&>O◊>∂:

and then a little bit more of that, probably binary not meant for humans.

As requested, the output of ls -al is the following 

Feldev-MBP:.E05268AB3AE5F72AF1E451 feldev$ ls -al
total 8
drwxrwxrwx@  3 feldev  staff   96 19 Jul  2014 .
drwx------+ 19 feldev  staff  608  3 Sep 21:07 ..
-rw-rw-rw-@  1 feldev  staff  242 22 Oct  2014 DF2CEE62032EFA2196B0B67336814E

and the output of file .E05268AB3AE5F72AF.../DF2CEE62032EFA2196B0B673... is data

Best Answer

Do you have those on your desktop?

No and nor have I ever seen that exact file. I have, however, seen similar files with seemingly gibberish text.

Do you know why they're there?

It is impossible to tell why they are exactly there but my best guess would be the following: They are old temporary autosave file created by some unknown program. Many programs will create hidden autosave files when you unfocus the program or at certain intervals incase of a crash or force quit. This is extremely helpful for many different reasons. Many times this file is compressed to save space or written in some other format (this is why its ineligible).

The folder was created on July 19th 2014 and its file on October 22nd 2014

My guess is that the file was copied over from some kind of transfer form an older computer. Maybe from Time Machine or another backup software, although, again, it is impossible to know for sure.

You probably already know this but I will reiterate, files starting with a '.' are hidden. They can be unhidden with the following command(s):

  1. defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

  2. killall Finder

Or the simpler method of

⌘ + Shift + .

while in a Finder window

After re-reading I realized I never said what you should do with them! As the other answers have said, you can back them up and delete them. You should not see any problems.

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