Question about Safari and it's Cache.

Some browsers (not Safari) have a Work Offline button, so you only load pages in the cache. I don't think such thing exists in Safari, but you might want to look through User>Library>Cache>Safari to see if you find something. All the caches are .cache, and I don't know what app would read that. Sorry.. good luck anyway

EDIT: Actually Safari can read those .cache files, so you just have to get the file, and wish that the images are still there, cuz sometimes they're not

Try google cache

mouthster said:

Is there anyway to "browse" Safari's cache , specifically for images?

Click to expand...

The developer tools come with a nice little program for this kind of thing called DiskCacheInspector. There is a built copy at http://homepage.mac.com/dknecht/ if you are in a hurry or don't have that installed.

Question about Safari and its Cache - DiskCacheInspector

iMeowbot said:

The developer tools come with a nice little program for this kind of thing called DiskCacheInspector. There is a built copy at http://homepage.mac.com/dknecht/ if you are in a hurry or don't have that installed.

Click to expand...

The URL listed is way old - I only find a .gif file there now, but ...

If you have Xcode 2.4.1 installed the example project file is /Developer/Examples/WebKit/DiskCacheInspector/DiskCacheInspector.xcodeproj

You can't run the ../Build/Release/DiskCacheInspector.app because it gives you 'You cannot open the application "DiskCacheInspector.app" because it may be damaged or incomplete.'

I was able to run it from Xcode and rebuild it too, but I was only able to get it to execute outside Xcode by using Finder to browse the package contents, and then dragging the executable /Developer/Examples/WebKit/DiskCacheInspector/build/Release/DiskCacheInspector.app/Contents/MacOS/DiskCacheInspector into a Terminal window.

The DiskCacheInspector is not a fully-finished application but it does show what the real file names of the Safari cache files are.

I got interested in this to disassemble a .swf file to look at the contents.

I used the swftools-0.8.1 package to extract what I wanted.

Is there anything like this that I could use to read cache when using Leopard OS
have tried cachediskinspector using tiger & that would give me exactly what I need but don't think it has been updated for use on Leopard

I need to be able to read something I saw on a website that has now changed
I know the time & date I viewed it

Really glad of any help you could give me

try

archive.org
they have copies of old instances of websites.

Also, try going to google and selecting images.

search on whatever topic you want, but with the condition of site:website.com (website.com is the name of your site)

It will pull pics it has from that specific site. You may find what you want.

Also, (I'm new to mac) is there a google desktop for mac? If so that would find it.

Finally what aobut spotlight?

Don

frasus said:

Is there anything like this that I could use to read cache when using Leopard OS
have tried cachediskinspector using tiger & that would give me exactly what I need but don't think it has been updated for use on Leopard

I need to be able to read something I saw on a website that has now changed. I know the time & date I viewed it

Really glad of any help you could give me

Click to expand...

Hi frasus,

As you are on Leopard I can't help you directly with DiskCacheInspector cos I'm still on Tiger myself (stripes not spots), or at least I will be again in a day or. My hard drive crashed and first I have to do brain surgery on my Mac mini again.

However, when it's back together (should be over the next few days) I could rebuild the application in Tiger Xcode and send you the DiskCacheInspector.app package. It might still work on Leopard even tho' I guess the Frameworks (dependencies) may be be different. You'd have to try it, see my comments at the end of http://skyprod.net/pub/HowTo/OSX-FlashExtract/. I had to rebuild the application and then locate the DiskCacheInspector binary in Finder and drag and drop it into a Terminal.

There are some other tools you can use, which I found thru various Google search. For example, you might take a look at FileJuicer (see http://echoone.com/filejuicer/formats/cache) but it costs.

Later,

M.C. (cooker47)

thanks for your replies

I have tried filejuicer & emailed the developer but you can't actually find the info you need for a given time/date

Really hope you don't think this is a frivolous reason for needing the info but I won an internet competition, saw "you have won" but lost the page before I could click through for the code I needed to claim prize. (this happened twice, so lost 2 prizes)
Have phoned Virgin who were running the comp & they can give me prizes if I can tell them what the 2 images were on the page - I didn't see them before lost page.
Same thing has happened to other people but because they were using pcs could search cache & find what matching images were & have claimed prize.
I need to find exactly what was on the webpage at a certain moment, the images change constantly but when I look in activity it actually lists what those images were - that is what I need to find in the cache

the cachediskinspector seems to do that in tiger

Someone else suggested an sqlite? programme & have found one for macs but can't work out what you have to do - am a newbie, not a techie

thanks again for taking the trouble to reply,
think I may have to accept nothing I can do
but I keep hoping

DiskCacheInspector

Re.

frasus said:

...

Try running the DiskCacheInspector binary in a Terminal as described in the README.txt file inside:

http://skyprod.net/~mcook/OSX/DiskCacheInspector.Tiger.dmg

Let me know if that works for you on Leopard.

I'm still figuring out how to fix up the sample to make DiskCacheInspector.app run in the usual way.

Best,

M.C.

Click to expand...

Hi cooker47

thanks for continued help, not had much success

Followed instructions in read me dragged diskcacheinspect to terminal

DiskCacheInspector opened the following

Cache path: /users/sue/Library/Caches/Safari but listed no items
is this because the path is incorrect? Is there a way to change the path - never used terminal before

frasus said:

Hi cooker47

thanks for continued help, not had much success

Followed instructions in read me dragged diskcacheinspect to terminal

DiskCacheInspector opened the following

Cache path: /users/sue/Library/Caches/Safari but listed no items
is this because the path is incorrect? Is there a way to change the path - never used terminal before

Click to expand...

Well, did the DiskCacheInspector window open up? It sounds as tho' it did.

But if it didn't list any files then the named Safari cache location might be empty - you might have a look to check it - or it could it's listing the wrong location for Leopard, or else this Tiger DiskCacheInspector binary won't work on Leopard for some other reason.

Did you install Leopard's Xcode? Try that and see if the DiskCacheInspector example is still there - it's in /Developer/Example/Webkit/DiskCacheInspector after you install Xcode on Tiger.

Best regards,

M.C.

Hi
The Diskcacheinspector window did open but the path it showed was /users/sue/Library/Caches/Safari is this the correct path in Leopard

when I have checked it there are other folders, eg/users/sue/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/etc .
Is there any way to change the path in Diskcacheinspector?

Have installed Xcode but the Diskcacheinspector is not listed where you said.

thanks for your continued help

Safari cache

frasus said:

Hi
The Diskcacheinspector window did open but the path it showed was /users/sue/Library/Caches/Safari is this the correct path in Leopard

when I have checked it there are other folders, eg/users/sue/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/etc .
Is there any way to change the path in Diskcacheinspector?

Have installed Xcode but the Diskcacheinspector is not listed where you said.

thanks for your continued help

Click to expand...

Hi again,

1) The path looks correct, and as far as I know you cannot change it. If you navigate to this folder in a Terminal, it should be full of sub-folders containing files called <something>.cache. You can view the contents using vi and they contain timestamps in the form "Wed, 07 May 2008 04:24:46 GMT", which might be useful.

2) With Tiger you have to select the Webkit examples by customizing the Xcode install.

3) Perhaps more usefully, try http://homepage.mac.com/dknecht/.Public/DiskCacheInspector.zip. When you unzip it, this version runs like a normal application. I still didn't figure out how to build it properly myself.

4) You can also try the tool Retrospective from here: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/25612.

Good luck!

Sorry what is vi?

Re. vi and DiskCacheInspector for Safari

frasus said:

Sorry what is vi?

Click to expand...

Hi frasus,

1) "vi" is one of your basic UNIX editors - others prefer "nano" or "emacs". You run it from a command line in Terminal. But to try using that here would launch you on a whole new adventure full of different learning curves that you might prefer to avoid unless you need to learn about UNIX.

2) Just to document it here, I found the cause of my problem 'you cannot open the application "DiskCacheInspector" because it may be damaged or incomplete'. See http://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-unassigned/2006-December/025074.html. This is a bug dating back to 2006. The cause was simply that the original Info.plist file for the project incorrectly contained the string "DiskCacheInpector" (sic) for the CFBundleExecutable key instead of "DiskCacheInspector".

Once again, good luck with your search,

M.C.

DiskCacheInspector.Tiger.dmg - updated

The .dmg file has now been updated so that the DiskCacheInspector application (Universal binary, not yet tested on Intel), can be started in the usual way, rather than having to drag it to a Terminal.

See http://skyprod.net/~mcook/OSX/DiskCacheInspector.Tiger.dmg

Please can anybody let me know if this works on Leopard Intel and Leopard PPC.

DiskCacheInspector.Tiger.dmg

cooker47 said:

The .dmg file has now been updated so that the DiskCacheInspector application (Universal binary, not yet tested on Intel), can be started in the usual way, rather than having to drag it to a Terminal.

See http://skyprod.net/~mcook/OSX/DiskCacheInspector.Tiger.dmg

Please can anybody let me know if this works on Leopard Intel and Leopard PPC.

Click to expand...

Since May '08, I saw a few downloads of this file in my web server logs. Just for the heck of it, I downloaded it myself yesterday and found to my horror that somehow it still contained the original broken version of the .app.

Anyhoo, I have now fixed that, so now it works on OSX 10.4.11 PPC without getting the error. An updated README.TXT file is also included.

Hi buddies, this post is old, but maybe some other users can be interested in SafariCacheExplorer. This app let you explore, extract and delete individual files from Safari's cache... (but is not limited to only Safari's cache... also can open any native mac os cache).

Bye