#Mac file extensions how to

The 'Advanced' tab in the Finder preferences permits you to force the file extension part of the file name to be displayed. The file extension is part of the file name, and it You might consider using the Terminal to check if the meta-data files exist and are accessible. This could happen if the meta-data files were deleted for some reason, or the file server prohibited access to files starting with '.', or any of a slew of other reasons. In your scenario, it sounds as if the meta-data is being lost. When a Mac accesses a non-native filesystem, the operating system knows to use the dot-underscore files and it does the correct thing when copying files back and forth (merging the meta-data back into the native filesystem, for example). So, say you have a file named 'My Document', there would be in the same directory a file called '._My Document' created that has all the meta-data. The meta-data is stored in a file with the prefix '._'. If you use a non-OS X protocol like SMB/CIFS or NFS, OS X will write the file data and the meta-data separately.

#Mac file extensions how to

On network shares that are AFP volumes, the meta-data is sent along with the file information and the host environment figures out how to store it - most importantly is that OS X basically sees the file and meta-data just like a native volume. If stored to a native OS X HFS+ filesystem, then the meta-data is stored within the filesystem itself. OS X can use file extensions or meta-data about the file in order to determine the file type and how to open it.