How do I restore my iMac from Trash after accidentally emptying it?

pegsus07 wrote:

... I have an external drive with Time Machine on but no clue how to use it.

Recover all your files from a Time Machine backup - Apple Support explains what to do.

Using "Norton" or other similarly categorized products to "quarantine" files is likely to have resulted in unrecoverable corruption. Using Time Machine, locate a backup created prior to doing that, and restore it. Uninstall "Norton".

Your statement is confusing. First you state that you emptied the trash then you stated you can still access the info in the trash. If files are still in the trash then open trash, select file and select put back or drag to another location to use. If they are gone then as already stated open Time Machine and scroll back in time when the files still existed, select the file and then select restore at the bottom of the panel.

A: Norton is absolute garbage. it will cause more problems than it could ever hope to fix. That is probably how things ended up in the trash to begin with.

Remove Norton entirely.

Then drag the items out of the trash back to where they belong.

+1 Norton is worse than garbage, it's toxic garbage. NEVER EVER EVER install any of the following types of third apps:

• Antivirus
• Cleaning
• Security
• VPN
• Maintenance

To keep Mac OS secure, quick and stable simply keep Mac OS up-to-date and restart the computer about 1x per week.