Documents Folder Completely Missing
Hi there,
I've been on my iMac all day and all of a sudden my Documents folder is gone and my trash can is empty. (I've been working in Word all day and I did no upgrades, downloads, etc.) The folder is still visible on the Finder window, but it's empty and nothing happens when I click on it. When I access it through the "Go" menu of the finder it will open on the screen, but it's empty. My Downloads folder also disappeared from the Finder window. I selected to add it back, but it won't. When I try to access it through the "Go" menu nothing happens. I've tried the following:
Macintosh HD - User - [my admin profile] - Documents: Empty with no modified date [I can access the Downloads folder and content here, but nowhere else.]
Terminal: - ls-al~/Documents (based on a previous 'Apple discussion answer' recommendation): I get "no such file or directory" (with spaces in between them it says "command not found")
I also reopened Word and chose "Open Recent." The file I was working on today hasn't saved since yesterday (even though I manually saved it multiple times today). I'm able to open another file so I looked at the properties and it says it's in my Documents folder; which doesn't make any sense.
I have TimeMachine backed up automatically to an external hard drive, and I think I can figure out how to restore a backup. But I'd lose all the work I've done in the last hour. I guess I could sacrifice that if I absolutely had to, but I really don't want that outcome.
Help!