Not all files visible on external drive

[hsgamerpl]

Hello,

I've started files migration from Windows to Mac OS (my first Mac). I have a problem, that after copying files from Windows to external drive (tried both filesystems, exFAT and NTFS) not all files are visible on Mac OS's Finder and I do not know what to do next.
Files which are not "visible" are simple m4a files, what's stranger few of them are visible in Finder, but like 4 out of 30. I've checked on two Windows machines, and both of them show external drive files properly.

BR, Kamil.

 

[chscag]

How about including a sample file for us to look at? Files that are shown like this: .m4a with no name before the dot will be invisible.

 

[hsgamerpl]

Hi,

Here's the screenshot from my OneDrive foider. Most of those files are invisible on Mac, mp3s are visible.
Whats more interesting, external drive on Windows shows 5.75 GB when the directory is selected, while Mac shows 2.70GB.

Pressing Shift+Option+. does not make them visible/invisible.

BR,

 

[chscag]

Yeah, it looks like those file names are not legal names that macOS recognizes and they do not show up. In other words they are not counted or invisible.

Try renaming some of them if possible to see if they show up. Remove the spaces and the dots. You can replace the dots with the underline symbol instead.

 

[hsgamerpl]

Ok Ill try that but the thing is interesting - first 5 .m4a are visible while the rest "does not exist" although it is visible under Windows.

BR,

 

[chabig]

I don’t see anything in those file names that isn’t allowed. Maybe the problem is related to the copying software you’re using. Why not log into your OneDrive account from the Mac and get them that way?

 

[hsgamerpl]

Yeah, I guess that's the only way. I've tried to figure out something else, because OneDrive's download rate through browser is tragic and it will probably take me half of a day to download those missing files.

 

[hobowankenobi]

If it is simply a visibility issue, you have the ability to show all invisible files.

If that solves it, you can also use a 3rd party tool to batch rename files. There are several tools out there, like this one.

 

[hsgamerpl]

Like I've said, out of 22 files in this folder, 5 are visible on Mac "no idea why" and the rest is nonexistent, even when checking the size of the folder it says 3.75 instead of 5.5 GB, while on Windows everything is in place. I've tried downloading the folder directly from OneDrive (it creates zip file when downloading multiple files) but when I try to open it it says "Error 2 - missing catalogue or file). What's even stranger all those m4a files were recorded with an iPhone so I do not understand "compatibility" issues if any.

BR,

 

[hsgamerpl]

Problem solved - I've simply renamed all files to 1, 2, 3, etc. Now Mac OS sees all of them. Still, I do not understand why, when named "incorrectly" it showed few of them in the directory.

BR,

 

[Fishrrman]

The problem had to be due to something with "naming conventions and restrictions" on the Mac OS side of things.

The solution, as you found, was trivially simple -- just rename the files.
Problems... solved.