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Recently, I was working on an Excel file when the program closed unexpectedly; luckily, my work was mostly saved by the recovery feature of Excel. However, Excel created a file on my desktop, titled "FD4C0910" that cannot be compressed, deleted, or moved. Upon attempting to "Get Info" (both with the keyboard shortcut, ⌘+I, and by right clicking and selecting "Get Info"), nothing happens. Double clicking the file, or even highlighting and pressing ⌘+O, does nothing. Here is an image of the phenomenon:

(This is the message that appears upon attempting to delete the file.)

Can anyone explain what this is and how to get rid of it?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This is a known bug in Office for Mac 2011. The icons represent temporary files that have been deleted. (Probably before they were deleted they were invisible.) You cannot Get Info on the files or find the files via Terminal because they do not exists; the bug is that the Finder is still showing them. If you force-quit the Finder it will restart and the file icons will be gone.

The best workaround to keep them from coming back seems to be to move files off the desktop and into a folder before opening them.

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  • Didn't think of relaunching Finder. Thanks!
    – please delete me
    Jun 1, 2012 at 19:16
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I have seen these as well and I believe that it is a temporary file. In my experience they are erased after a system restart. There is a more detailed explanation and a few suggestions on long term fixes (i.e. repairing the file permissions) on the Apple Discussion Board here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2731410.

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