Tuesday 24 January 2012

Lotus Notes 8.5.3 on Apple Mac OSX - Where do your temp files go to, my lovely ?

Now I've done this a few times before, and it's cost me time ( and time costs money, darn it ).

So, here's the situation - one of my colleagues sends me an email, with an attached document ( a Microsoft Word .DOC file, if it matters ! ). Now I know what you're going to say …. why oh why oh why did he send me an attachment ? :-p

Anyway, I double-click on the attachment, and automatically open it up in Lotus Symphony 8.01 which is nice.

I edit the document, and then save it ( to a new filename, of course ), without really focusing on the WHERE e.g. into which folder I'm saving it.

So now I need to send my revised document back to my colleague - via LotusLive, as I just simply refuse to send email attachments :-)

Ah, right, now where did I put the file ?

When you open a file from within a Notes message, it stores it in a temporary location of, apparently, it's own making.

Ordinarily, on the Mac, I'd simply use Spotlight ( [CMD] [Space] ) to find the file by name. Sadly, at least on my system, Spotlight doesn't index absolutely everywhere :-(

After some trial-and-error ( including creating a draft email to myself, which included a similar document attachment, and then opening it in Symphony ), I worked out that the temporary folder is ….. here: -

/private/var/folders/g_/zl9kplwd7hg2fcwh5qrpdwbh0000gn/T/TemporaryItems/notes

Now I *know* that the folder location will change from time to time e.g. perhaps with a newly opened instance of Notes, on a different machine etc. but … it'd do.

So, if I remember to read this blog post IN THE FUTURE, I'll be able to find my attachments :-)

Alternatively, perhaps I can tell Spotlight to index /private or tell Notes to store temporary files in, say, /tmp :-)

15 comments:

Unknown said...

this just saved my life!! Thank you

Dave Hay said...

@Anthony, glad to be of service :-)

Unknown said...

Saved me! In fact, for the second time...

My file ended up being in /private/var/folders/sc/k8f913vd3gqgj1cyrjnbbrwc0000gp/T/TemporaryItems/Notes... isn't it a fun game to play with Notes while blood drains from your face as you realise how much work you have just lost?

Dave Hay said...

@Dave - yes, absolutely. I remember having a similar issue with Notes on Ubuntu a few years back, and it is quite galling IF you lose the files :-)

Paddy said...

Thanks , you saved my day

Dave Hay said...

@Paddy - glad to help :-)

Matt Drive said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

You are a saint - just saved me with 5 hours of work and a flight to catch. I owe you big time.

Dave Hay said...

More than happy to help :-)

Unknown said...

Thanks

You saved hours of work for us. Cheeeers

Dave Hay said...

Robert, yay, glad to be of help :-) Cheers, Dave

Unknown said...

Dave Hay, saving lives since 2012 :)

Dave Hay said...

Dave, nice thought, thanks :-)

BCYC Foil Riders Guide to Europe said...

Dave Hay - saving more lives and marriages than the St John Ambulance and the village Vicar since 2012!

Dave Hay said...

Glad to be of service, Mr O'H

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