One moment I was working on my laptop. I downloaded a file from my email. I went to retrieve it from my downloads folder on my dock, and the folder is empty. When I click on it, a window appears stating "Downloads ... Open in Finder." When I open it in finder, it is empty. There were a few hundred files in this folder. How do I recover these?
MacBook Pro
Hello JoeSexton,
Thanks for checking those places. Do you have Time Machine backups that have the files?
If so, you can restore them that way: Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac
Thanks.
Hi JoeSexton,
As you are having trouble seeing where your downloaded files are, here are some resources and steps that might help:
Hope this helps.
Have a good day.
Do you have iCloud syncing enabled on the Downloads folder? I'm not sure how this affects the folder when enabled since I don't use iCloud.
Are you using any anti-virus apps, cleaning apps, or third party security software which may be interfering with the normal operation of macOS?
Have you tried searching for the file name using Spotlight in case the files have been accidentally moved somewhere else?
Does anyone else have access to this Mac and this user account?
Thank you for the help. I did all that you suggested, but the files are still completely gone. I can see many of the files in the "downloads" tab of my browser, but they are marked "deleted." Word document files are visible in the "recent" documents tab, but when I try to open one of the documents, I am told the file is unavailable and has been deleted. The odd thing is nothing ever went into my .trash. I have not touched .trash since this happened and it contains no files. I can't understand how this happened. Most of the files have been backed up, but I want to make sure I figure out how to avoid this problem in the future.
Missing Files In Downloads Folder
