In Windows, I believe that files with a tilde in the file name represent files that are currently open in an application. For example, Microsoft Word creates a file with almost the same name as the file you currently have open, but with a tilde in the name. It's icon is also partially faded. As far as I'm aware, this signifies a temporary file that exists
- in case the application crashes and you didn't get a chance to save your file, or
- to allow the original file to remain unlocked by the file system and accessible to other applications.
In Linux, I ran into a *.log file with a tilde at the end of the file name (scan.log~
). Does that mean the log file is currently open in another application that is potentially writing to it?