Sep 25, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
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'After updating my Mac, I surprised to see that all my desktop files disappeared. Sadly, I have no idea why it happens? Where my files go? Unfortunately, I don't have a backup. So, is there any way to recover files disappeared from Mac?'
There are a lot of users who recently reported that few files from their Mac desktop are missing or they've just got disappeared. It is quite surprising for those users who have a habit of saving their important files on the desktop.
If this sounds you, then you may probably know how much it is annoying to lose your files you need the most. In such cases, you might be looking for ways to get back your missing desktop files. The good news is that there are some effective methods that can help you to recover missing files on Mac with ease.
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Here, in this article, we have mentioned several ways you can try to locate your desktop files that have disappeared somehow.
Why Desktop Files Disappeared from Mac?
When users see that all desktop files disappeared from their Mac, one question surely comes to their mind how it happens and why their Mac desktop files are missing. Well, there are a number of reasons for this situation. Here, we have covered some of them you need to know:
- It might be because you have chosen to keep your Desktop and Documents files on iCloud and that's why your files disappear from the desktop. If this is the case, then all you need to do is to check your iCloud settings in 'System Preferences'>'iCloud'>'iCloud Drive' options.
- Sometimes, files get permanently deleted or lost due to various reasons, such as virus-attack, power-failure on your Mac. In such cases, you need powerful data recovery software for Mac to recover your permanently deleted or lost files.
- Maybe you have moved some files to another location, such as Trash from your desktop on your Mac and you completely forgot about it or can't remember where you've moved them. In such cases, you can try to remember or check the Trash folder because maybe you have moved files to this folder.
Well, the main concern is how to locate files that disappeared from Mac. Now, we are going to mention several methods that can help you to do that.
Method 1. Disable the File Sync with iCloud
The latest versions of macOS come with an iCloud feature that enables users to sync their Mac Desktop and Documents folders to iCloud Drive. The feature allows you to access your Mac desktop and Documents folders across different devices, which include iOS devices, other Mac, and iCloud.com.
Thus, if you have saved desktop and documents folders in iCloud Drive, then your desktop and documents folders moved to the iCloud part of your of Finder sidebar. In this scenario, all you can do to show you missing files on Mac is to disable the iCloud drive. To learn how to check iCloud drive settings to get back the lost or disappeared desktop files, follow the below steps:
- To start with, move to the Apple menu, and then, go to System Preferences.
- Now, click on iCloud and then, click on 'Options' next to iCloud.
- Here, you need to uncheck the box 'Desktop & Documents Folders' and finally, click on the 'Done' button.
While you are doing the above process, you will get a warning message saying 'If you continue, items will be removed from the desktop and the documents folder on this Mac and will remain available in iCloud Drive'. So, here all you have to do is to continue with the process and open every desktop and documents folders that are displayed in iCloud Drive. To recover your missing files, you can simply drag them to the new empty desktop folder.
Method 2. Recover Missing Files on Mac in 3 Steps
If you are looking for an easy and quick way to recover your missing files on Mac, then data recovery software for Mac can help you to do that. Unlike common ways, the software is specially designed to help users to get back their files with ease.
1. Recoverit - The Best Software to Recover Word Files:
Whenever you experience a data loss situation, Recoverit Data Recovery Mac will help you to retrieve it. This data recovery software will come in handy even when you've never made a backup of your device. You now know how to partition Mac hard drive and unpartition it. But knowing how you can recover the lost or deleted files from the drive is also necessary.
2. How to Recover Lost Word Files on Mac:
Step 1: Select a Location
Launch the software and select the drive from where the data files are lost. If you don't know which drive to search, tap on the 'I can't find my partition' option, and hit the Start button.
Step 2: Scan the Location
Typically, the software will run an All-Around Recovery scan and search for the lost and deleted files on the entire drive.
Step 3: Preview and Recover
When the scan completes, the files will be listed on the screen. The software will sort out the files according to format to make the search easier. You can select multiple files at a time and have a preview at them.
Method 3. Use macOS Mojave Stacks
There is no doubt that if there is any convenient place to store and place files on Mac, it is desktop. By saving files on the desktop, you can access them easily and quickly and the best thing is that you don't have to go through various folders. But, sometimes important files present on your Mac desktop get disappeared or lost somehow.
Luckily, there is good news for users who have updated their Mac system to macOS Mojave. There is one new desktop feature added in the macOS Mojave, and it is desktop stacks. With the help of this new feature, you can easily locate your missing files on Mac. Before you learn how to locate files on Mac using macOS Mojave stacks, you need to first understand what exactly the stacks feature is?
What is Stacks?
Well, they are virtual folders that can help you to manage and corral your files on Mac. You might don't know that they have been included in macOS Dock for many years, but they are now quite helpful for users who are looking for ways to locate missing or lost desktop files.
The main concept here is 'virtual folders'. They are not actual directories in the file system of your Mac. All of your Mac files remain in their original locations. However, macOS Mojave stacks collect all of these files and show them to you under one expanding folder.
Thus, if you have updated your Mac to Mojave, and files present on your desktop seem to disappear, then you don't have to worry. They are probably hiding behind this new stacks feature. Here, we are going to show how you can use desktop stacks in macOS Mojave.
Turn on desktop stacks in Mojave:
- Go to your Mac desktop, here you need to select the 'View' tab from the menu bar located at top of the screen.
- Next, you need to choose the 'Use Stacks' option. Or you can right-click on the desktop to get this option to enable it.
Find missing files using stacks:
Once you have enabled desktop stacks new features, you can easily access the data of each stack and all you have to do is to click on its icon. Files it contains will be shown below and plus, other desktop files will be moved to the left for a temporary basis to make the room as required. If you click the stack once more, then it will get close, and also, it will return all icons to their original locations.
Bonus Tip: How to Delete Files on Mac Desktop Safely
If you have a lot of folders and files on your Mac, then you might want to delete some files in order tofree up storage space on your system.
Here is the simple guide on how to delete files on Mac desktop:
- To start with, locate files you want to delete on your Mac.
- Select the files you want to get rid of them and drag them into the trash can located at the bottom of the screen. Or you can simply right-click on the selected files, and choose 'Move to Trash' option from the list menu.
If there are some files you've deleted accidentally, then simply use 'Command + Z' right away to undo the previous action. You also need to delete these files from the Trash folder if you want to delete them permanently from your Mac.
There is no doubt that deleting or getting rid of unwanted and useless files on Mac is quite easy and straightforward. But, sometimes you end up deleting some important files while you are trying to clean your Mac system. Luckily, there are some tips you can follow to keep your data protected on Mac. Let's give a look at all these tips and tricks:
- Back up your important files: The first and foremost tip to protect your data on Mac is to backup your important files. You may never know when you encounter a data loss situation on your Mac. If you've already back up your files, then you can easily recover them with ease in case if your files get lost or deleted somehow.
- Lock your Mac: When you have to step away from your Mac, don't forget to lock your Mac to avoid unauthorized access to your important data.
- Keep passwords strong: While you are setting a password on your Mac, try to set a strong password that is hard to guess by someone else.
With the help of the above-mentioned tips, you can easily protect your data and Mac too.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this guide helps Mac users who have reported that all my files are gone on Mac. There are good common measures to locate disappeared files on Mac. If you are unable to find your desired files even after using common methods, then Recoverit is here to help you. This data recovery tool for Mac can locate and recover lost, missing, or disappearing files within a few minutes.
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Are you sure you want to delete “THIS REALLY IMPORTANT FILE”?
*Hits Delete*
Wait! I mean Cancel. I meant to press Cancel. I NEED THAT FILE.
Noooooo!
We’ve all been there. Inexplicably deleting a file and regretting it immediately. It sucks. It really does. But it’s not the end of the world. There are ways and means of recovering your files. More specifically, there are tools, tips, and tricks to help you recover your files.
Best File Recovery Apps for Mac
Use Setapp to recover deleted files on Mac. So that nothing ever gets lost in the shuffle.
If you accidentally delete a file you didn't mean to trash, don't panic. It’s happened to us all. You spend all day working on a text document or a spreadsheet and you save it to the Desktop to make it easier to find later. Then, at the end of the day, in an attempt to tidy up, you drag it to the Trash and without thinking about it, click Empty Trash. With a crunch, your whole day’s work is gone.
If only you’d started running Time Machine yesterday rather than tomorrow. If only you’d made a back up earlier in the day. If only.
What should you do first if this happens?
Thankfully, all is not lost.
It is possible, even if you haven’t taken precautions - such as using TimeMachine - to recover files, photos, audio, music, emails you’ve dragged to the Trash and emptied. The first thing to do is… nothing! That’s right, don’t do anything else on your Mac. You need the disk’s file structure to remain exactly as it was when you emptied the Trash.
You might not realize, but files you delete from your computer aren't actually *gone* until those bytes on the hard drive are written over with new data. So between your Mac's built-in tools and handy utilities like Disk Drill and CleanMyMac, there's almost always a way to get a mistakenly deleted file back.
Setapp includes access to several crucial utilities for recovering files, maintaining your Mac, and keeping everything backed up. The recovery software in particular—including DiskDrill for your Mac and external drives, and ForkLift for a quick search of deleted, matching, and changed files in the active folders—is a huge added value, because you'll have it there right when you need it, without having to shell out money to buy professional-grade software to fix your mistake.
How to recover accidentally deleted files
How to recover deleted files after emptying the Trash? Here's what to do when you experience the stomach-sinking feeling of deleting a file you didn't want to delete.
See if the file was really deleted
It's possible you just moved your file to the Trash, which is just a holding pen. Files aren't deleted all the way until they're emptied from the Trash. So check there by clicking the Trash icon in your Mac's Dock. If your file is there, just drag it out to your Desktop, or to another folder in the Finder.
It's also smart to run a quick Spotlight search for your file—maybe you just moved it to iCloud by accident. Press Command-space and type the name of the file to see what your Mac can find. If you see it in the results, click it to open it, or press Command while you click the file to show where it's located in the Finder.
You can also ask Siri on the Mac to show you files you worked on today, or this week, or all your Pages documents, or some other search query that could turn up your file. I ask Siri, 'Show me files I worked on today' quite often, and it's very handy.
Recover deleted files with Time Machine
If you're smart enough to use a Mac, you're probably smart enough to have a Time Machine backup going, right? (Right?) If so, even files that were fully deleted from the Trash are still accessible in your Time Machine backup.
Time Machine backs up all of your files and folders for safe keeping. You can store your folders, or a whole hard drive in a cloud-storage folder or an external hard drive. Enabling it is simple (connect the device first if you are using an external drive):
- Go to System Preferences > Time Machine.
- Click Select Backup Disk and choose which disk you’d like to use for your backups.
- Check the Back Up Automatically box to enable automatic backups of your Mac to your chosen disk, cloud storage or external hard drive.
Now, if you’ve done the unthinkable and deleted something you really need in the trash, here is how you get it back from Time Machine (if the storage is another hard drive then that will need connecting to the Mac first):
![Undelete Undelete](/uploads/1/2/6/5/126562519/544816431.png)
- Go to System Preferences > Time Machine.
- Check the box next to Show Time Machine in the menu bar.
- Click on the Time Machine icon, then click Enter Time Machine.
- Find the file or folder you’d like to recover, then click Restore. Time Machine will copy the file or folder back to its original location.
Recover deleted files from a backup
It’s always better to avoid having to recover a file you’ve put into the Trash. The best way to do that is to backup your main disk regularly.
Time Machine is incredibly convenient, but maybe you back up your Mac another way. Backup utilities like Get Backup Pro and ChronoSync Express, both part of the Setapp family, can create rock-solid backups so your files are always protected. Just mount the backup, find the file you deleted, and copy it back over to your Mac.
A bootable backup, which you can create with Get Backup Pro, has an extra advantage: If your Mac’s own hard drive dies, you can boot your system from the backup drive, and recover files individually, or copy the entire drive to a new drive or a new Mac. Depending on how you’ve deleted something, and whether it was backed-up first, some of the options above might be open to you.
If you’re looking for a fast way to backup your iPhone, there’s a solution – an app called AnyTrans. Not only does it allow to run instant backups, according to your custom schedule, but also to backup specific files, and transfer data across devices.
To recover deleted data the easy way, use Disk Drill. This app is the great file recovery tool for Mac. If a file exists somewhere on your hard drive, this app will find it. Disk Drill does all the heavy lifting.
Restore deleted photos on Mac with Photos app
How to recover deleted photos? When you delete a photo from the Photos app on your Mac, that photo isn't moved to the regular Trash. Instead, it stays in a little trash can inside the Photos app, called Recently Deleted. Photos hang around in the Recently Deleted folder for 30 days before they're deleted automatically.
So if you deleted a photo less than 30 days ago, it's probably still in Recently Deleted, which you'll find in the Photos app's sidebar, under Albums. Find it and select it there, and then click the Restore button to move it back to its original location in your Photos library.
Recover music in iTunes
When you delete a track from your iTunes library, you're asked if you want to simply remove it from your library, or move the song to the Trash. If you tell iTunes not to trash the file, the song is removed from your iTunes library but the actual file stays where it has always been. That means you can open a Finder window and navigate to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media, where you'll find all your music and videos neatly organized.
Find the file you removed from iTunes, and just drag it onto the iTunes icon in your Dock to add it back to your library.
If you told iTunes to move the file to the Trash, you can find it there and drag it back to your Desktop to recover it. Then, open iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, and make sure the box that says 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library' is checked. Then you can drag the recovered file from your Desktop back onto the iTunes icon in your Dock, and the file will be added to your iTunes library, and copied into its proper place in the iTunes Media folder too.
If the original file has been deleted from the Trash (either by accident or automatically, after 30 days), open your iTunes Media file in Time Machine and navigate back in time to before you deleted it (as outlined here), or recover it from another backup.
Restore older versions of a document
Many Mac apps - such as Text Edit, Preview, iWork, and others - keep older versions of files you've been working on, using a versioning feature built into macOS. This trick doesn't work on a file you deleted, but rather to restore an earlier version of a file—as in, you changed something and saved the file again, then decided you wanted undo all those changes.
- Open the file, and then in the menubar, choose File > Revert To > Browse All Versions.
- You'll see a Time Machine-like interface showing all the versions of that file, going back in time.
- You can scroll back to the one you want and click Restore.
Pro tip: If you hold the Option key down, the Restore button changes to Restore a copy, and you'll wind up with both the older version and the new one.
How to recover a file from your Mac when you don’t have a backup
If you didn't back up your files, and you don't use Time Machine, you can still recover deleted files if they haven't been overwritten by new data just yet. You just need some recovery software.
Setapp includes a great utility called Disk Drill, which scans your Mac's hard drive for deleted files. If the file is on your boot drive—and let's face it, it probably is—Disk Drill will even walk you through three options to do this safely. You'll need to temporarily disable macOS's file system protection, create a recovery boot drive, or connect to another Mac, but everything's explained very clearly.
Once your drive has been scanned, it's easy to sort the results to find your file, preview it with Quick Look, and restore it back to its previous location. Disk Drill can even extract items from inside an iOS device backup.
When you realize you need a deleted file back, time is of the essence. After all, if you wait too long, new data could overwrite the deleted file on your hard drive.
You can recover files from any storage device on your Mac safely and effectively with just several clicks:
Step 1: Plug in an external storage device
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a flash drive, an external hard drive, or even an SD card. Anything will do, so long as it’s got enough free space to hold the file you want to recover. The key point is that you should never attempt to recover a file to the same disk you deleted it from.
Step 2: Launch recovery app
With the external storage disk plugged in, launch Disk Drill. Click on your Mac’s hard drive (not the disk you just plugged in) and click Recover. Wait. Depending on the size of your Mac’s startup disk and how often you use it and delete files from it, the scan could take a little while. The good news is that as your Mac’s disk isn’t corrupted, a Deep Scan shouldn’t be necessary.
Step 3: Review the results
When the scan is finished, you’ll see all the files Disk Drill has found listed in the window with information including the file name, type and modification date. There may be lots of files to look through, so use the filter at the top of the window. Click on the dropdown menu above the file path and select the type of file – JPEG, TXT, etc. – you’re look for. That will narrow down the search. If you’re still having trouble, use the other two filters to set the file size and the time it was deleted.
Step 4: Preview the file to confirm
When you’ve found the file you accidentally put in the Trash, click the eye icon next to the file path to preview it. If the file is a text document or spreadsheet, check over it carefully to make sure it’s ok. If it’s a movie or music file, watch or listen to it all the way through to make sure the whole file is intact. If you’re happy that it’s ok, press the Recover button.
Step 5: Recover file from the Mac Trash
When you click Recover, you’ll be asked to choose where you want to save the recovered file. This is where the spare disk comes in. Navigate to that disk and choose it as the location. Follow the instructions onscreen to complete the recovery process. When it’s finished, your file will be saved on the external disk. You can now copy it back to your main hard drive and put it wherever you like (but not in the Trash!).
Prevention is better than cure
If you’d rather not use Time Machine or other backup software, Disk Drill has a feature that can help. Guaranteed Recovery saves a copy of every file you put in the Trash so that if you accidentally delete a file, you still have a copy of it. Depending on the kind of files you work with and how often you put things in the Trash, that can take up quite a bit of disk space and will grow over time. Another option is Recovery Vault. This creates a ‘map’ of your disk and stores only the metadata used to create the map. It uses much less storage space than Guaranteed Recovery but takes longer to restore files and may not work in all circumstances.
Recovering files from corrupt drives
Force Delete File Mac
If an external hard drive—or even your main drive—has errors or other corruption, don't panic. Your files may still be recoverable. Disk Drill, part of your Setapp subscription, can scan damaged hard drives for any files that it can find.
Attach the damaged external drive to your Mac, and Disk Drill should be able to mount it. Disk Drill can also scan damaged SD cards if you connect them to your Mac with a card reader or your Mac's built-in card slot.
If you need to scan your boot drive, Disk Drill walks you through the steps. You could create a bootable backup of your main drive, boot from that backup, and then run Disk Drill from the backup to scan the main drive. Or you can connect the Mac with the damaged drive to another Mac, and mount the damaged hard drive in Target Disk Mode. Your Setapp subscription works on two Macs, so it's no problem to install Disk Drill on the second Mac and use it to recover files from the damaged hard drive on the first Mac.
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How to enable Guaranteed Recovery
- Identify your startup disk. In Disk Drill’s main window, look for your startup disk – it will usually be called ‘Macintosh HD’, unless you’ve renamed it. Hover over the Recover button and click the gear icon that appears next to it. Choose ‘Configure data protection.’ Alternatively, if you just want to switch both Guaranteed Recover and Recovery Vault on, click the shield icon to the left of ‘Recover.’
- Configure data protection. In the window that opens, click ‘Ok, let’s do it.’ In the next window, set the slider next to ‘Guaranteed Recovery’ to ‘On’. Click the arrow to the left of ‘Guaranteed Recovery’ to reveal the options for configuring it.
- Choose options for saving a copy of trash files. At the bottom of the next window, choose how long you want to keep a copy of files that have been moved to the Trash. You can also choose the maximum size of any individual file to be copied and the total maximum size of all copied files.
- Add another folder. Guaranteed Recovery can make a copy of any folder, not just Trash. If you want to protect a folder with important documents in it, click ‘Add Folder’ and navigate to the folder you want to protect. When you’re done, click the back button to return to Disk Drill’s main screen.
How to delete files safely
Setapp also includes CleanMyMac, which is packed with features to find and remove old files, apps, and extensions, and keep your Mac's hard drive in the best shape. Its Smart Cleanup feature scans your whole Mac with a single click, finding system junk, duplicates, old Mail attachments, and big files you forgot about in the Trash or around your hard drive.
After the scan, you can go through each section of results, preview any file to decide if you really want to delete it, and uncheck anything you'd like to keep. All the files marked for deletion are safe—CleanMyMac even refers to a Safety Database to make sure it's not flagging anything your system needs to run properly.
How to completely delete a file from Mac
Finally, there may be files you deliberately put in the Trash and don’t want to be recovered.
Undelete On Mac
In case you want to delete sensitive files _and_ overwrite them so they can never be recovered, you can use CleanMyMac’s File Shredder, which destroy files completely and means they are actually gone forever. This uses the Mac's secure erase setting, and can also help you delete files that the Trash says can't be deleted.
Professional file recovery, aka the nuclear option
If all of these methods fail, you might have to turn to the pros. Professional file recovery firms like DriveSavers are specialists in recovering data when nothing else will work. They can even recover files from computers that were burned in fires, drowned in water, or physically destroyed. It's not cheap, but if you lost something utterly priceless, these are the people you want to call.
Accidentally deleting a file is scary but it’s really nothing to worry about. If you make regular backups you’ll always have another copy and most files go straight to the Trash anyway, where you can easily restore them. Of course, let this be a lesson to you—keep a backup, or better yet two backups, and you won't find yourself in this situation. Setapp includes ChronoSync Express to help you sync crucial data to a remote server, for example. Get Backup Pro can automate four kinds of backups, including bootable backups that make an exact copy of your entire hard drive that you can boot from in case of disaster, and compressed backups that use less space. External drives and cloud storage are getting cheaper and cheaper, so there's no reason to leave your data unprotected. If anything more serious occurs and a file can’t be found, download Disk Drill from Setapp and have that bring your documents, photos, or music back to life.
For one monthly fee, Setapp includes all the utilities you need to keep your data safe. Plus, it has more than 150+ other Mac apps that can help you create data too, from Tayasui Sketches to Swift Publisher to Ulysses to NotePlan to MoneyWiz. The more you use Setapp, the more you realize the value of having a huge collection of hand-picked, up-to-date, ever-helpful applications for your Mac.
Setapp lives on Mac and iOS. Please come back from another device.
Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.
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