Getting files back

When a file refuses to open

Updated 2026-07-31 · 4 min read

'Corrupted' is the last explanation to accept, not the first. Most unopenable files are something simpler.

Find out what it really is

The extension is a claim, not a fact:

file ~/Downloads/mystery.pdf

file inspects the contents. A "PDF" that is actually HTML document text is a failed download page; a "docx" that is Zip archive is normal (that is what docx is); a "JPEG" that is data is likely truncated.

Check the size

A 0-byte or suspiciously tiny file is an interrupted download or copy. There is nothing to repair — re-download it.

ls -lh ~/Downloads/mystery.pdf

Try a more forgiving opener

• PDFs: Preview is strict; a browser is often laxer
• Images: Preview refuses what other viewers sometimes render
• Office files: LibreOffice (free) opens many files Word rejects, and Word's own

File → Open → Repair exists on some versions

• Text-ish anything: less file or a code editor shows what is readable inside

docx, xlsx, pages: they are zips

Office and iWork documents are zip archives. When one is damaged:

cd /tmp && unzip -o ~/Documents/broken.docx -d broken_doc

The document text lives in word/document.xml. Even from a badly damaged file, the text often extracts intact — formatting is what dies.

Quarantine, not corruption

A file that macOS refuses to open with vague warnings may just be quarantined:

xattr -l file
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine file

Only do that for files you trust.

Then versions and backups

If the file is genuinely damaged, the recovery routes are the same as an overwrite: app Versions, Time Machine, cloud version history. A corrupted current version with a healthy version from yesterday is a solved problem.

Common questions

How do I check if a file is corrupted on a Mac?

file <path> reports what the contents actually are; a mismatch with the extension usually explains the failure better than corruption does.

Can a corrupted Word document be repaired?

Often partially — .docx is a zip, and the text inside word/document.xml frequently survives even when the file will not open.