[Hidden-tech] Recover lost documents on Mac OS (no icloud)

[Robert Heller]

At Sun, 28 Jul 2019 13:44:06 -0400 shel at principledprofit.com wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> Try searching for a couple of keywords in one of the documents. If it shows
> up, you will see the folder hierarchy. It is possible you accidentally
> renamed the documents folder and it's all still there.
> 
> And if a finder search doesn't help, try searching from within an
> application such as word. The Mac's find function got a lot funkier several
> years ago. Though it is still way better than a PC.

Two other possibilities:

Could you have *somehow* renamed the folder to have a period as its first
character? Files and directories whose names start with a period (under
UNIX/Posix O/Ss) are considered "hidden" and don't show up under "normal"
conditions.  (MacOSX *is* UNIX, under the hood.)

Secondly, Since MacOSX *is* UNIX, under the hood, you also have this 
option:

Open a Terminal (yes, I know were are entering the totally scary (?) world of 
the command like) and enter (with the keyboard!):

find -name "*one of your missing document names*"

(The '"' and '*' are needed -- I am guessing your documents have "funny" 
characters, like spaces in them and you probably have no clue about the 
document's "suffix".)  Don't forget to press ENTER and the end of the command. 

You can also try:

ls -A

(The find command recursively traverses your directory tree, the ls command 
with the -A open will show hidden files and directories.)

Also, my MacMini has the locate command (I don't know if that is a standard 
feature of MacOSX or if I installed it as an after market thing, maybe with 
MacPorts).  So that is another way of finding files.



> 
> On Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 12:15 PM Claire Huttlinger via Hidden-discuss <
> hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
> 
> > Greetings:
> >
> > Does anyone know how to recover a document folder form a Mac OS hard
> > drive?  I have mysteriously lost one, and I have not emptied my trash or
> > anything.  The folder and and all the documents it contained have
> > disappeared from every history, the trash, the finder, everywhere.  Any
> > thoughts?
> >
> > Claire
> > _______________________________________________
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