Alias and Copy? Can TRASH be recovered? I lost my work.

An Alias is a small file that points to an original somewhere else on your hard drives.
The icons you see in the Dock, for example, are not the actual applications but clicking on them will open the applications.

You might also make an alias for a file that you use often and place it on your desktop, instead of opening the Finder and going several folders deep to locate the original.

If an original file is deleted, the alias is useless.

There are possibilties to recover trashed files. You stand a better chance if you immediately stop using the computer and run the recovery software ASAP. Best results are achieved by recovering to a different drive - not the same drive as the original file was on.

A copy is just that;; a copy of the original file. It can function on it's own.

An alias is merely a link or shortcut to the actual file. An alias is NOT a real file.

If you trashed files and then emptied the trash, you MAY still be able to recover the files IF the blocks they were written on (on the hard drive) have not yet been used for newly created files. However, even if you do recover some complete files, they may not be fully functional if the data resource fork isn't also recovered. Do a search for data rescue.

-DH

I understand alias' are like "copies"...

No. Go back and read the comments from David and myself.

Search for "Data Rescue" on versiontracker.com it's cheap and might be able to get your stuff back.
If you can't find it there, I think it's made by SubRosaSoft (subrosasoft.com?)

A copy of a file IS a copy. It is a file.

An alias is NOT a file. Nor is it a copy. It is merely a link or pointer to the real file. If you're familiar with Windows systems, an alias on a Mac is the exact same thing as a shortcut on a Windows system. Repeat: IT IS NOT A FILE OR A COPY.

Use Google for searching.

-DH

You don't understand it.

Think of things this way ... your file is a sack of flour. A copy will be another sack of flour. The copy will weigh the same, have the same volume and when you make bread from it and use it all up, your original sack is untouched.

An alias is a just a sign pointing to the original sack of flour. It has no mass, no weight, no volume. When you eat the original sack of flour, the alias just points to an empty bag.

Time to start reading up on data recovery. I've used a program called File Salvage to good effect. There are others.

x

So if you delete a alias, will the original (from where you took the alias) still be there?

You can delete an alias without deleting the original.

-DH