Hello,
All of my files have been deleted suddenly from my Mac. All I was doing was typing an email and they were gone. The documents folder is nowhere to be found (including on iCloud) and nothing is on my desktop anymore. "Finder" refused to shut down and I did relaunch. Didn't help. I only have access to anything that was downloaded since January. No recent software update btw.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Air, macOS 14.6
Unfortunately, if the files don’t show when booted into Safe Mode, and if nothing in the trash, and the same login as is usually used, and with no backups, there’s a reasonable chance the files are gone.
Whether this was a corruption, a hardware error, some app got “helpful”, malware, or something else?
I don’t use Desktops & Documents setting, either. But I do have two and sometimes more Time Machine backups running in parallel on all Macs where the data matters.
I have some docs on an external drive but not my most recent ones. And unfortunately, I just learned about Time Machine after this had taken place.
This seems to be a fairly common thing for some people. Another question I have is why has this happened? A "bug"? It can't be a user error in my case and that seems to be true with most threads of conversation I see from others. Haven't messed with anything settings until suddenly you open your mac to find stuff gone.. such a bummer!
deletedfilez wrote:
I have some docs on an external drive but not my most recent ones. And unfortunately, I just learned about Time Machine after this had taken place.
That’s unfortunately when most of us learn about the need for backups; after we lose some of our data.
This seems to be a fairly common thing for some people.
Losing our data? That goes back to the very earliest computers. Computers sometimes being semi-malevolent creations, intent on mayhem. After some of the earliest data was lost, backups were invented. And then forgotten and re-learned through time.
Some of my acquaintance routinely lose their data for more “creative” reasons. One liked to directly poke at the contents of their own files, and routinely corrupted the files, and were immune to “Don’t do that”. 🤷🏼♂️ Thankfully, they also hadn’t disabled or lost or corrupted their backups, but they did occasionally unplug their external storage hardware. Once, they unplugged the whole computer. And it was a three hour drive to that site. 🙄
Another question I have is why has this happened? A "bug"? It can't be a user error in my case and that seems to be true with most threads of conversation I see from others. Haven't messed with anything settings until suddenly you open your mac to find stuff gone.. such a bummer!
I’m not yet sure exactly what happened here.
If you accepted some of the usually-default settings when setting up your Mac, your desktops and documents data is stored in iCloud, and may still be available.
When everything disappears like you report, it can be iCloud not connecting due to some network or authentication glitch somewhere.
If you’re not using iCloud for desktop and documents, what you are reporting can be a bigger problem.
Or you can be using a different login on the Mac, with different files locally, or different files in iCloud Drive.
Which is why I asked about a restart, as sometimes that (and re-login) reestablishes the connection with iCloud.
Don’t be hopeful about recovery from an SSD.
MacBook Air uses SSD storage, and SSDs don’t recover files after deletion, re-init, erase, or such.
Not like the HDDs of old could sometimes permit.
If the data was stored in and is still in iCloud Drive, it can potentially remain available there.
Thank you MrHoffman for reaching out.
In regards to my fairly common thing comment I was referring to what I was reading on other communities. I have found other people (older posts) with similar situations - where they were typing/writing emails or whatever - had not recently messed with any settings etc. - and then look to find desktop files gone. No one had any answers. Since they were older posts I was hopeful that maybe things had changed but I'm not so hopeful anymore.
I was not using iCloud for desktop and documents for my Air. Though it may be the unpopular opinion here - I don't care for it much. I was using an external hard drive. No time machine back up.
Tried a restart. No other logins on my Mac :/ if you think of anything else please let me know!
So no Time Machine backups, or other backups?
Try restarting the Mac.
How many user accounts on that machine?
How do I recover suddenly deleted files on my Mac?
