Lost files on all platforms
I am using a MacBook Air running Big Sur. I went looking in a very large folder where I keep some important files and found that all of the subfolders in that folder from before 2020 have no files in them. All of the folders, subfolders, etc, are intact, but ALL of the files (with a few random exceptions) are GONE. I looked in iCloud, but the configuration is the same. All files pre-2020 are gone.
This is ONLY true of this one large (but important to me!) folder. And according to the directory, all of the materials in this folder were modified on July 8 of this year - but the materials for the last three years are still there, anything before that is gone.
Any thoughts?
MacBook Air 13″, OS X 10.10