Recovering accidentally wiped files using Disc Digger for free

restore items backed up with Time Machine

Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

even if you have no external ** drive, TM keeps local snapshots...

About Time Machine local snapshots on Mac

I would not be confident about your " Disc Digger" recovering files on a SSD.

Silent_Dreamz_Sound_Design wrote:

I had alotta files wiped after using Chat Gpt and Disc Digger found them all but, I don't got the $89 to but it at the moment until next week, but need to recover those files immediately & restore what was wiped accidently.

Best approach, as several others pointed out already, is recover the files from a Time Machine backup.

There are several file recovery utilities available, but all of them require purchase before they recover the files, although some will give you a preview in the free version to see what they claim they can recover. But there are no reputable file recovery tools that are free.

Disc Digger looks a bit immature:

Running DiskDigger in macOS

This brief guide explains how to run DiskDigger in macOS.

Although support for macOS is still experimental, DiskDigger should provide all the same powerful recovery functionality as it does on Windows. The current Beta version of DiskDigger is built using Avalonia UI, which is a cross-platform toolkit that allows DiskDigger to run on various platforms including Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Also, Disc Digger has to run as sudo in Terminal. That means running as root user, and files saved will also have root user access only, so you would need to change permissions (chmod) in Terminal for the original users to access their files. This looks like a bit of a mess and maybe even dangerous.

I would suggest other tools like Disk Drill (which I have never used for file recovery but I know people who have).

I have at least two active Time Machine backups plus one "clone backup" plus cloud storage copies of all my computers so I have never had to use file recovery tools.

In no way does that mean you will be able to recover the files even if you pay, especially if you are dealing with an SSD drive. Data recovery using the older spin Hard Drives was more successful since the data on the drive was just marked as available and remained there until something else needed to write over the top of it. That is not how it works with an SSD drive as the data first needs to be erased before it can be counted as available. This is done with a TRIM process in the background shortly after you delete the file. Showing the names of recoverable files is just a teaser until you pay and then find that the data makes no sense.

Mac Jim ID wrote:

In no way does that mean you will be able to recover the files even if you pay, especially if you are dealing with an SSD drive. Data recovery using the older spin Hard Drives was more successful since the data on the drive was just marked as available and remained there until something else needed to write over the top of it. That is not how it works with an SSD drive as the data first needs to be erased before it can be counted as available. This is done with a TRIM process in the background shortly after you delete the file. Showing the names of recoverable files is just a teaser until you pay and then find that the data makes no sense.

With hard drives, the first rule if you deleted files from the Trash and wanted to try to get them back was

STOP DOING ANYTHING THAT MIGHT CAUSE WRITES TO THE DISK!

Including starting up from that disk it was a startup disk. Boot from backups (if possible) until such time as you can run a recovery tool. Even then, expect that the recovery tool might not recover much of anything – or that it will recover a pile of stuff so mangled and laborious to sort through that you will question whether it is worth it.

With SSDs, as you note, things are more complicated, which makes your chances of getting anything back worse.

The OP's tag line indicates that he has a 16" MacBook Pro that is running Sequoia. That implies that the machine has a soldered-in SSD whose contents are encrypted and decrypted in real time by the T2 security chip (16" Intel MBP) or Apple Silicon processor. I'm not sure if the encryption and decryption will make retrieving data "in place" harder, but they certainly aren't going to help.

If you have used or are using Time Machine Backup Utility  you maybe able to Restore the Deleted Files  to a time before AI / GPT was given expressed permission to delete the files

For future purposes

To truly protect your non replaceable Data

Have a 3-2-1 Rescue Plan in place and always current

3 Backups using 2 methods and 1 off site incase of natural disaster or un-natural disaster.

Each of the above should be done to a Dedicated Single Purposed External Drive 

Below link is intended to augment what TM Backup does 

https://bombich.com

Oh wait, are they in the Trash?

do you mean DiskDigger?

tried the Android version before, but totally useless in my case, it found a lot of web images, instead of those deleted ones i need.

people are talking a lot about disk drill, cisdem and dmde, but all of them have bad/good reviews, it is difficult to say which one is the solution for you, because of different data loss cases and Mac environment. but if the free version can find the file, it will help recover your files.

Add on if you please

AI / LLM are basically a Super Version of Predictive Text which is based upon a Data Set.

When that Data Set is based upon older data points, the outcome of the response will be equally out dated and / or unreliable

AI is also the newest form for Data Mining by Large Corporations.

Suggest being very careful about this.

Some suggestions can be incorrect, misinformed , incomplete, impossible to do, out right wrong

Apart of all the very good advise given by All my colleagues

I for one, am very interested in exactly what and how was Chat Gpt involved in this wiping of a lot of files

Ai / LLM models are good for somethings but not really good for deciding what and how to do most things related to managing a computer and your files

Humanes are usually much better on such matters

Owl-53 wrote:

I for one, am very interested in exactly what and how was Chat Gpt involved in this wiping of a lot of files

Ai / LLM models are good for somethings but not really good for deciding what and how to do most things related to managing a computer and your files

Come on, now. Give a LLM some credit. A LLM might be very good at giving you advice on how to wipe a lot of files when you weren't planning on doing so!

Now as for reliable advice on how to get them back …

All you can do is stop using it until you. can recover them.

Am I to take all this as a tongue in cheek comment