iCloud deleted my documents. How do I get them back

On my Mac I found two folders in ~/Library:

Mobile Documents

Mobile Documents.delete.Sat Oct 15 09:01:32 2011

each contains directories for the iWorks applications and in each a Documents folder. In "Mobile Documents" each Documents folder is empty. All my latest documents synced from iCloud are still in "Mobile Documents.delete.Sat Oct 15 09:01:32 2011". However, so far I have found no way to make iCloud resync the documents from the delete folder.

I can copy a document into the appropriate application Documents folder and shortly afterwards it shows up in iCloud and on my iPad. E.g. copy a Excel document into Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Numbers/Documents and it shows up.

However, this does not seem to work with the documents synced from my iPad to iCloud which are now in the "Mobile Documents.delete.Sat Oct 15 09:01:32 2011" folder. It doesn't seem to sync them back into the cloud.

So right now, at least I have a almost up-to-date version of my documents saved on my Mac but no way to get it back into the cloud...

When I turn the device on, I can still catch a glimpse of the documents, but they disappear immediately thereafter leaving only the "Getting started" file that comes as a default in Pages.

I have managed to get my Numbers documents back:

1. I have copied the documents folder in "~/Library/Mobile Documents.delete.Sat Oct 15 09:01:32 2011/com~apple~Numbers/Documents" to "~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Numbers/Documents".

AGAIN: MAKE A COPY! Don't move the folder in case it doesn't work. Maybe even make a second copy fo the whole ".delete" folder to have a backup copy available!

2. I have renamed each document folder, removing the ending "-tef", e.g. renamed "My First Document.numbers-tef" to "My First Document.numbers". This makes the document appear in iCloud shortly afterwards. You can't open it as it is considered a document created by the Mac Numbers application.

3. I have renamed each document folder back, i.e. "My First Document.numbers" to "My First Document.numbers-tef"

4. Now iCloud seems to sync it up again and recognizes it. It reappers on my iPad and I can open it.

5. I did this for each of my 9 documents. If you have more, you may want to use a little script.

6. To get the previews back I have also copied the contents of "~/Library/Mobile Documents.delete.Sat Oct 15 09:01:32 2011/com~apple~Numbers/iWorkPreviews" to "~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Numbers/iWorkPreviews"

Now everything seems to be O.K. Documents are back. They show up on icloud.com, iPad and iPhone. I haven't done anything with Numbers the last two days thus at least for me: no loss.

There must be some preference file somewhere that can be deleted to restore sync and prevent deletion by the device.

The same with me. I've just lost all my documents from Pages and Numbers on my iPad this morning. This looks serious and Apple'd better do something to resore it.

This seems unbelievable to me. With the iPad 2, Apple targets the serious business market. So it cant be true, that an update deletes ALL documents that you (I!) stored in Pages, Keynote, Numbers. Even more: with iTunes I made a backup of all content before upgrading to IOS5 - obviously with no use, since you cant restore the data, or at least I dont know how to do it.

For me, not only my confidence in Apple is lost - there is real money lost, since my iPad contained important business information.

Apple: What are you going to do about this?

The same has happened to me 4 times since the official release of iCloud, this is something that shouldn't be happening outside a beta phase!

Outstanding and unbelievable

Please tell me this really isn't happening. That this is just a nightmare and I am using windows that just looks like apple.

Bless you, gvde, your advice worked and I recovered my documents. Of course this issue of disappearing files needs to be resolved, but at least all my data is intact. Thanks so much!

Just wanted to say the same happened to me, only 5 or docs on ipad, synced with icloud completely disappeared from everywhere after that. This is a bit lame isn't it?

I seemed to have solved this problem by deactivating iCloud on every device (including the Mac!) and then activating it again, after trashing the "Delete Mobile" folders I had found in the LIbrary. Now the IWork documents have resumed regular syncing and I haven't experienced any deletion since. Here's the steps I took exactly: (a) tun off iCloud on Mac, iPad, iPhone after backing up Calendars and Address Book, (b) deleted "Mobile Documents" folders from Library and (c) reinstated all ICloud accounts commencing with Mac. Who knows, perhaps it was just a synchronization issue.

The deleted documents should be in the "Deleted Documents.mobile" folders that are located inside in your Library folder (if you are using OSX Lion you may have to type a special terminal command to view this hidden folder).

I used iTunes on a pc not a Mac, to do the ios5 update. Why you ask? It was the only other computer I had. Anyone else in my predicament?

Same problem here. Hours of work lost... Apple need to do something about it...

And I just entered iCloud.com to see if my files were still there and it seems iCloud has deleted them once again... It has been 4 times and counting, Apple can't seem to get it right, MobileMe was a total failure and iCloud is trying to catch it.

I thought I had found a solution by deleting and reinstating iCloud on all devices, but iCloud just wiped clean all IWork documents again. I have set an appointment with Applecare to try and sort this issue out. It's incredible!