Bruce R
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Is it possible to recover a deleted folder and its contents as opposed to an individual file?

When I turned on my computer today, a folder located on my desktop is no longer there.  Astounded I could have accidentally deleted it, the folder having been trashed is the only illogical logical possibility I can think of - and is a first for me in my 30 years of Mac use.  My father is in the process of dying and the folder contains all the information coming to me on the subject.  The last backup of this folder is about a week old and much has been added since for which I've no record.

 

Not having a master document or table of contents listing what was in the folder leaving me unable to search for and recover individual files/documents by name, my question is this:  Is it possible to recover a "FOLDER", and its contents after that folder has been moved from the desktop to the trash, the trash emptied, and the computer having been shut down?

 

If anyone has any ideas of how to recover anything about what items that folder contained, I'd really appreciate whatever thoughts you might have.

 

Thanks in advance -

 

The computer this folder is missing from is a early 2008 MacPro, running 10.7.5.

Posted on May 4, 2015 1:37 PM

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Bruce R

Q: Is it possible to recover a deleted folder and its contents as opposed to an individual file?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece May 4, 2015 1:47 PM in response to Bruce R
    Level 5 (7,721 points)
    Notebooks
    May 4, 2015 1:47 PM in response to Bruce R

    How are you trying to recover the files? The best chance would be from a backup if you used Time Machine, however it seems like you don't have that setup?

     

    File recovery programs can look for the file headers, these can indicate where a file begins & ends to pull that data back out. Sadly this usually ends up with a random file name & lots of data to comb through. To do it properly you must stop writing any data to that disk & have another disk to recover onto.

    The folder structure is usually lost too.

  • by Bruce R,

    Bruce R Bruce R May 4, 2015 4:56 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 4, 2015 4:56 PM in response to Drew Reece

    Hey Drew,

     

    I appreciate your response.  I'm recovering files using Data Rescue & Stellar Phoenix MacDataRecovery.  As you said, I'm finding that I'm having to sift through a huge amount of data and try to remember best as I can what the contents of the folder were, as I'm not seeing how to recover any non system folders and believe, as you said, that folder structure is lost.  The best chance would have been a current backup, however, and yes - lesson re-learned, I don't have a backup of the last week's worth of additions to the Folder.

     

    If you get any ideas, I'll be checking back repeatedly and often, thanks.

  • by Tony T1,

    Tony T1 Tony T1 May 4, 2015 5:19 PM in response to Bruce R
    Level 6 (9,249 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 4, 2015 5:19 PM in response to Bruce R

    I don't believe that this will do what you want, but you can email the developers and ask them:

    https://secure.subrosasoft.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=201&produc ts_id=1&zenid=e540f52c8a7a8f0fcde07d3702121f93

     

     

    edit:  Looks like it cannot recover a Folder structure:

     

    The file names will not be included as they are not actually stored in the file but rather in the system's catalog/b-trees. Minutes after the file is deleted, the information will be removed and the space recycled and overwritten. FileSalvage will recover your files to the folder of your choice but the specific folders they were in and placement will not be the same. This once again is because that information is contained in the system's catalog/b-trees.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece May 4, 2015 8:29 PM in response to Bruce R
    Level 5 (7,721 points)
    Notebooks
    May 4, 2015 8:29 PM in response to Bruce R

    I'm not sure what you can do beyond trying to restrict the types of files you search for. These apps normally have ways to select the file types or to add example files. That allows them to carve out only those types, but you still may end up with GB's of data, especially if the types are somewhat generic. I don't know of any tools that can undo changes to the disk catalog over time.

     

    I guess you could also search for specific text if you know that these files contained something that is 'almost unique'. Spotlight can do that, or grep, egrep are command line tools that may help ask if you want to go that route, they may help you gather lists to move files around to whittle them down.

     

    Sorry I can't think of a way around this it's a difficult task at a difficult time. Good luck with it, ask if you think we could help.

     

     

     

    I do wonder if Apples 'Versions' could help?

    OS X Lion: About Auto Save and Versions - Apple Support

     

    @Tony T1, do you know how to restore files from that system? I think it is part of Time Machine, but the copies are saved locally.

     

    It is not entirely clear how it works (at least from my memory of Lion) with regards to how you could get files back in this situation. The database should be at the base of the disk in a hidden folder ".DocumentRevisions-V100", but I don't think you can just pull files out of there. Personally I'd consider making a full disk backup before you attempt to restore files. Then you could try the 'Enter Time Machine' UI to see if it can browse back to the older Desktop.

  • by Alice_Phoebe,

    Alice_Phoebe Alice_Phoebe May 4, 2015 9:26 PM in response to Bruce R
    Level 1 (20 points)
    May 4, 2015 9:26 PM in response to Bruce R

    Hi,

    It seems that there is no such a software to recover a deleted original folder, i just know simple way to recover lost files - by Easeus data recovery wizard, it can help you recover files by type, by time, and path.

    see the screenshot below.

    screenshot.png

    One thing you must be clear is that you should install the software on other partitions instead of the one where you lost your data.

  • by Bruce R,

    Bruce R Bruce R May 5, 2015 4:17 PM in response to Tony T1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 5, 2015 4:17 PM in response to Tony T1

    Alice, et alia, thank you so much for taking the time & information.  It's appreciated more than you might know.

     

    I'm finding the key factor to being able to retrieve a Folder is that the recovery happen as immediately after the loss as possible.

     

    Tony, I contacted the developers of File Salvage who said the time since loosing the folder has most likely been too long.  They suggested contacting DataRescue & DiskDrill & ask the same.  DataRescue told me folder structure is lost and not possible to retrieve.

     

    Drew, I'm actually getting through it the long way and believe I've adequately recovered the essential and have contacted those who submitted the information to please submit again, any information supplied during the "unbackedup" week.

     

    As I'm no longer in "panic" mode over this, I'm fine, but would still like to recover more.  You mentioned specific text searches 'almost unique' to that file.  The bulk of the documents I'd still like to recover are rtf / text files & a couple .mov files.  As I'm not sure of the exact file names to search for, would a partial name bring it up?  Example, if the file were actually titled "03/27/15 Dr. Laub", but in the search window I only entered "03/27/15".

     

    Again, thanks for the input and suggestions.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece May 6, 2015 2:10 PM in response to Bruce R
    Level 5 (7,721 points)
    Notebooks
    May 6, 2015 2:10 PM in response to Bruce R

    I was refering to the recovered files. They normally end up with random filenames, but if you can search within them it may help you see which ones are worth focusing on. grep is a way to search inside files via the command line - it parses plain text.

     

    RTF files may be tricky to search with grep since the text is 'marked up', but you may be able to isolate a few keywords. The other option is to allow Spotlight to index them & then use that. Spotlight should be better at indexing movies too. There is a command line version of Spotlight - 'mdfind' which may be useful for generating lists of files to look at.

    Movies may contain metadata that makes finding them a little easier (like mp3 tags). You may want to import them into a temporary iTunes library to see if they have any useful fields that can help with the searching.

     

    Sorry I don't think these recovery apps can search for data based on the old filename.

  • by zero253,

    zero253 zero253 Aug 19, 2016 1:01 AM in response to Bruce R
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 19, 2016 1:01 AM in response to Bruce R

    Time Machine would only help you in the future. Is your Mac set up with Time Machine? If so you should be able to get the deleted files that way. Click the Time Machine icon in the dock. Then go back to before you deleted the files, they are probably still available. f you don't have a Time Machine backup yet, then your best option would probably be uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac