If you’re scared of files that start with a “~$” and for good reason, the first thing that you need to know is that there is no reason for you to be scared when you see this file.

That’s probably because you haven’t created the file yet and it still appears in your Documents folder.

In most cases, besides the strange punctuation, the file name looks familiar but can be opened with a common application. However, when you try to open it, an error message is obtained causing the confusion as to what this file might be.

So, if you’ve wondered what this file really is, it’s really a temporary file and which has been created by Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. This is why, in most cases, the file goes away as soon as you close the file that you have just opened.

These temporary files have almost the same name except for the “~$” that replaces the first two letters of the file. For example, if the file that you have created is StackOverflow.docx, then its temporary file would look like ~$ackOverflow.docx.

As for opening these files, you can’t because they’re not normal .docx or .pptx files.

There are other times when you’ll see one of these temporary files without actually opening a document and this is because a file in either Powerpoint or Word did not close correctly due to a Windows crash.

Actually, you’re not supposed to see these files because they’re meant to be hidden and which means that someone has set up Windows to display these files. All you have to do is hide or display hidden files in the View tab which is located in the Folder Options dialog box.