Hi, I am trying to see the website I downloaded something from on my mac (OS X). I got as far as the “get info” feature but the “where from” field is missing. When I initially downloaded the file, I immediately renamed it and saved it back into downloads. I’m thinking that may be the reason the original website is no longer listed. Is there a way to get at this information? Is there some other, roundabout way to get at the info - for example, my search history for the day of the download lists the relevant site - but there’s no way to prove I downloaded the doc from that particular site rather than another one I browsed that day, right? Is this sort of info stored deep in the computer’s memory in some other, totally different format? I am not technically saavy… the issue here is proving to somebody else that the document was downloaded from a particular site (the download has since been pulled from that site). Thanks!
What happens if you go into the Downloads view in your browser? In Chrome, it shows me everything I’ve downloaded recently and where I got it from. Not sure if Safari does the same.
If you really mean “prove”, as in, the other person doesn’t trust you and wants some external evidence, then you’re out of luck, as any information like that on your computer could be fabricated.
If you mean “demonstrate”, as in the person thinks that maybe you’re mistaken but not trying to fabricate something, and you want something to support you, then your browser’s record is probably a good place to look.
The info is kept in an extended attribute associated with the file: kMDItemWhereFroms
There should be no reason for it to be lost, even if the file changes names. I have noted that this additional info actually being present on a file seems spotty at best. I use Firefox, and for some odd reason I only seem to see the info for the last month on downloaded files.
If you try from a terminal app, the command: xattr -l <filename> should list it. But that is all the Info pane accesses anyway, so there is no real value here.
One notes you can also put any info back on a file, so indeed, as noted above, it is trivially forge-able.