Folder greyed out, cannot access

[mveplus]

My issue was not: wrong user permission on the folder, locked folder, or no hidden flag!
This solved my issue, no copy/moving no anything! Thank you matthieu!

The reason for this symptom is often that the creation date of the folder is incorrectly set after such a failure resulting in the greyed out folder.

Set the folder creation date correctly using the SetFile terminal command and everything will be fine (no need to copy/duplicate/...)

e.g:
SetFile -d 02/02/2013 <folder_path>

regards
matthieu

My files were accessible from terminal, however I could not open the folders in finder.
Because this was not application there was no "Control"+"Show package content" option.

My folders was copied on external drive with Mac OS X Journaling partition, and all files were there, just something got messed up with setting up the date?

I looked everywhere find many solution that did not help, I didn't want to do move and copy because it was TB of data... This is the simplest and best solution I found here!

In case you wonder here is what I execute in terminal.app ( I set earlier date not current one):

SetFile -d 08/31/15 Users/
SetFile -d 08/31/15 Virtual\ Machines.localized/

"Users" folder was greyed like hidden folder, but "Virtual Machines.localized" was not even shown as a folder, just white greyed out file.

Problem solved for both!
Thank you, thank you matthieu

P.S. This is still valid for Yosemite 10.10.5!

 

[wilxware]

this thread, although old, actually highlighted my issue ... the folder date had been 1984 for some inexplicable reason but all the contents were ok ...

However, to rectify the situation I simply used a great little mac tool that I use all the time to fix photo exif dates etc.

It fixed my problem in 5 seconds so just in case anybody else ends up here ...

File Multi Tool 5 ... available from the Apple Store ... highly recommended !!

ps I have no connection whatsoever with the product ;-)

http://www.macworld.com/article/1158062/file_multi_tool_finder_metadata.html

 

[hunter3740]

e.g:
SetFile -d 02/02/2013 <folder_path>

regards
matthieu

fantastically late to the party, but I was looking up my own cheat sheet (for this greyed out folder with Jan 24, 1984 3AM problem) and spotlight gave up this thread as first hit, so figured I'd add more info in case others find this in need...

...if you have too many folders, here's a pair of commands that will restore the destination with the creation dates from the source, which will un-grey-out the folders (but you'll have to figure out the path of the good parent directory and the path of bad directory and replace as appropriate):

find /Volumes/goodfolder/ -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec getfileinfo {} \; | egrep "directory|created" | sed -e 's/directory: "\(.*\)"/\1/' | sed -e 's/created: \(.*\)/\1/' | sed -e 's#/Volumes/goodfolder#/Volumes/badfolder#' > temp.txt

while read oddline; do read evenline; setfile -d "$evenline" "$oddline"; done < temp.txt

then match the modified date (what the finder sees), with a third command:

rsync -rt --size-only /Volumes/goodfolder/ /Volumes/badfolder/

note: this won't affect dfs (for anyone who uses MS DFSR)

 

[Audiaudi]

Worked for us. Thanks Mandus!

We were having trouble with greyed out folders with inaccesible contents caused by a drive mysteriously ejecting during a large file xfer.

Mandus' suggestion was the easiest solution to execute and worked perfectly for us. Thanks!

--
Duplicating solved accessibility issue, but couldn't erase greyed folder.
There is another easy and effective way:
1. Right click on greyed folder
2. Choose "Folder Actions Setup..."
3. In "Folder Actions Setup..." dialog click "Show Folder" (this will open greyed folder in a new finder window)
4. Find locked file
5. Unlock the file (right click on locked file > Get Info > uncheck "Locked")
6. Erase the greyed folder (or make a copy, as you need).