iPhone 14 Pro Max iPhone files app ghost files?

[James Godfrey]

Hi all

Wondering if anyone can help, not sure if this is a bug with the latest iOS update or not.

In the files app on my iPhone in the Desktop, Documents and Shortcuts folders they are all showing as having 1 additional item in them than what is actually in there, and when nothing is in the file it is showing as 1 item being in them.

I am not sure why this is and it has only seemed to be showing since the latest iOS update.

This isn’t the case with the Downloads folder though which is strange.

Is this a bug? Can anyone else replicate the issue. I have checked iCloud.com to make sure there isn’t a file which hasn’t synced to my phone but there is nothing present on iCloud.com or my Mac either. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Big Apple Tim]

Is there any way to check on a Mac in Finder with Show Hidden Files enabled? Could be a .xml file or something like that.

 

[James Godfrey]

Is there any way to check on a Mac in Finder with Show Hidden Files enabled? Could be a .xml file or something like that.

I will try this when I get home and update. Thanks 👍

 

[James Godfrey]

After trying what you suggested on my Mac there is a .workflowhidden file in my shortcuts folder, not sure what this is for.

Also for some reason an alias file of both my desktop and documents folder appear also, I have tried deleting these but as soon as they are deleted they re-appear which is strange, any suggestions

 

[James Godfrey]

So a quick update…

I have tried creating folders etc myself within iCloud Drive and no alias or ghost files are created.

However, if I use any auto generated files such as Desktop, Documents or Shortcuts either a hidden file or an Alias is created. I have reported the issue to Apple with the hopes of a fix, but I am just wondering if anyone else has the same issue as I have checked my partners iCloud and they same issue exists so I am presuming it’s a bug.

If anyone could check if you have a hidden Alias file in iCloud for the Desktop and Documents files and also if you have a hidden .workflowhidden file in the shortcuts folder.

To see these files you need to be in iCloud on a Mac and use the shortcut command, shift and period (.).

Using this shortcut again re-hides them.

 

[NoBoMac]

Also for some reason an alias file of both my desktop and documents folder appear also, I have tried deleting these but as soon as they are deleted they re-appear which is strange, any suggestions

If you have iCloud Drive on for Documents and Desktop, you cannot delete the symlinks as they are there to point to the real location of the files. ~/Library/Mobile Documents is iCloud's sandbox.

If I'm understanding the dot file issue, does sound like a bug in Files app on iOS. Dot files have traditionally been hidden files in the *nix world, so would expect Files to also respect the tradition (and since there is some MacOS/BSD Unix under the covers, even more tradition going on).

Don't seem to have .workflowhidden file anywhere in iCloud Drive, so no idea where that might be coming from, but, there are a lot of sandboxing going on in Mobile Documents. If you do an "ls -l ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents" in a Terminal, will see lots of things that don't show in Files or Finder.

 

[James Godfrey]

If you have iCloud Drive on for Documents and Desktop, you cannot delete the symlinks as they are there to point to the real location of the files. ~/Library/Mobile Documents is iCloud's sandbox.

If I'm understanding the dot file issue, does sound like a bug in Files app on iOS. Dot files have traditionally been hidden files in the *nix world, so would expect Files to also respect the tradition (and since there is some MacOS/BSD Unix under the covers, even more tradition going on).

Don't seem to have .workflowhidden file anywhere in iCloud Drive, so no idea where that might be coming from, but, there are a lot of sandboxing going on in Mobile Documents. If you do an "ls -l ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents" in a Terminal, will see lots of things that don't show in Files or Finder.

Yeah what is also strange on my iPhone the desktop and documents folder show as having 1 file in them which is hidden, but on my iPad it shows as 0 files, so I am not sure if it’s possible an issue with my iPhone files app or whether it’s actually iCloud that’s causing the issue. I have never noticed or had this issue previously so I am assuming it’s a bug with the latest OS update on the iPhone