iCloud deleted my documents. How do I get them back

Thanks for sending along the most current workaround/solution. I am determined to wait for the least invasive solution in the form of an iCloud/Pages update. I have far too many apps and the only Pages documents I have were created on my iPad. On my Mac system I use MS Word exclusively for word processing. I chose the Pages app for iPad because it transferred Word/Page formated documents almost seamlessly. No other word-processor iPad app does this as well (at least that I have tried - and I have tried many).

I have also been in contact with Apple tech support re this issue which is still in process.

I was amazed to discover that they were not aware of the problem until I mentioned it to them, and pointed out the ever increasing number of complaints in the Community Forum. Even though this forum is designed exclusively to allow fellow users to help each other - the fact that they credit "Correct" and near correct answers suggests that some monitoring by those-in-the-know takes place. Why this serious issue has gone this long without intervention by Apple is a conundrum. If you follow some of the other posts - this has become a devastating issue for those with no back-up. The more seasoned users have been through this at least once or twice in their computing experience.

On my last test, documents stayed in iCloud AND on my iPad Pages app for at least twenty hours. I then did a hard reset on my iPad to make some impromtu adjustments to another app ... and in the process my documents were once again deleted.

I'll wait for the update.

As a temporary solution to prevent deleted documents: in Pages - on your iPad go to Settings(app)/Pages/turn OFF "Use iCloud". As a temporary back-up procedure email your documents to yourself as an attachment.

$1,000 piece of iCrap.

Six months of incredibly important business and personal documents dissapear before my eyes.

No delete confirmation. No input from the users at all other than starting the Pages app.

I am furuious! F#%$ing FURIOUS to see apple have not even bothered to respond.

iPad's cost $1,000 in Australia even though our dollar is stronger than the US$.

We get ripped off!

Now hundreds and hundreds of hours of work lost that will potentially cost me tens of thousands of dollars.

I watched the Developer Confernce video about iCloud and IOS 5 with so much enthusiasm.

Finally an easy way to access my documents. The emperor has no clothes people. We've all been duped.

What a bunch of suckers. Shiny, expensive iCrap.

Apple you arrogant, incompetant iDiots.

Get your act together. Fast! Fix the problem.

Please

I want all my documents and valubable midnight oil burning work back.

Hi

I have a rather strange experience as well:

- I used iCloud backup to backup data for all Notes, Pages and Numbers (files)

- Due to some other reason, I restore my iPad (1st gen) to its original state and then recover the settings / data from iCloud's backup copy

- I have successfully made THREE back copies of my iPad on iCloud

- When I Re-Install (on the freshly restored iPad) Numbers App, the app disappeared the moment it was downloaded. I REDOWNLOAD it again, but when it is open, i LOST my file (only ONE).

- When I Re-Install Pages, I saw all the files appearing and then they diasppeared.

- Nothing of this sort happened to KEYNOTE. I was lucky to have gotten EVERYTHING intact with KEYNOTE.

- Now when I log on iCloud on the web, I see no files in Pages or Numbers, but KEYNOTE is OK.

I had tried a few times to RESTORE my iPad again and again (it is about a >10 hours effort to go through the processes of downloading, restoring etc etc) trying to retrieve the lost Number files but all in vain.

Any help out there? If Steve is alive, I would write personally to him for help because the Number file is so important for me and my wife (sentimental stuff).

Here is a critical question:

- Are all data / Doc / Files safely kept (??) in one of the three iCloud backup files as they are, some sort of Time Machine?

- Is there a tech support email I could write to Apple to send the backup files from the cloud over?

Hey guys,

Can I make a suggestion that will at least save your data should you experience document deletion again?

Firstly, get all your documents back on to your idevice, and get them back into iCloud. Now, one by one, edit the document on your device, click the wrench icon, andclick on 'Share & Email'. Select 'Send to iTunes'. You will now be prompted to choose the format (click the first option matching the iWork program you're using).

Every time you make any changes to the document, repeat the above 'Send to ITunes'.

What happens is the iWork app copies the document to a different location on your idevice, it's the folder that is 'exposed' to iTunes when you view your devices app pane in iTunes. Essentially, it's a holding area where documents reside when you use iTunes to import or export documents to the device.

The beauty of this is that if your documents disappear again, you can simply fore up Pages etc on your iPad, go to the documents view, click the + in the top left corner and then choose 'Copy from iTunes'. It's a little misleading because you don't need to be anywhere near iTunes, it simply copies the file back from where it was saved when you chose 'Send to iTunes'.

I know it's no substitute for getting the problem fixed, however it's a very quick process to do when you've finished editing a document and ensures that you don't lose any critical data.

I hope this helps someone!!!

To all those who are sharing a similar disaster - the only preventive workaround until an update is made available for iCloud/Pages is to go to the "Settings" (app)/within the Settings app - then click on "Pages" the turn off "Use iCloud". Try to ensure you have back-ups of your important files first. You can hopefully email those documents within Pages to yourself as a means of temporarily backing up.

For those who have lost critical documents I suggest calling Apple directly to retrieve these!

It shouldn't cost anything because this is an issue related to a critical failure post an Apple sanctioned update. HOWEVER verify this first with front line support before proceeding.

I hope this helps. Please be aware that we - the people in this forum AND Apple are all trying to work through this as best as possible. And "No" - no company can be aware of all the permutations of a software update. Early adopters of ALL system/application updates in ALL platforms are subject to these issues. Some wait for months before adopting a new system some jump in - and yes I did to. Perfection is so elusive 😉

RECOVER YOUR DOCUMENTS!

After I had the same problem as you, I searched for a solution to get my documents back. And I found one!!! This evening I recovered all of my documents.

How to do?

First: You can only do that if you did use "icloud documents sync" also on your Mac (don't know if the windows variant also works) before icloud deleted your documents.

My example shows the way with numbers documents:

1. Watch at your mac for the folder /user/library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~numbers/documents. You should find some folders like myDocumentsName.numbers-tef. Take care with this! These are your lost documents. Copy the folders to another directory (save it).

2. Then you need a document in old numbers style (like the ...numbers-tef folders). I had that on my iDisk. So I used my ipad to recover the document from the iDisk to ios numbers. (it‘s totally equal if that is the correct document or not. You only need a document in old style in numbers ios).

3. Rename that document within ios numbers to the name of a document you lost.

4. After you renamed the document in ios numbers it gets uploaded to the icloud. Then you will see it at icloud.com and a few minutes later it gets synced into the com~apple~numbers folders on your mac.

5. replace the document you find there with the document you saved before out of that folder and wait until that change gets synced in the icloud.

TADA now your ios devices will update its document and you will have your old documents back.

For those who have lost critical documents I suggest calling Apple directly to retrieve these!

It shouldn't cost anything because this is an issue related to a critical failure post an Apple sanctioned update. HOWEVER verify this first with front line support before proceeding.

Many of those posting are using OS 10.6.X. There is rumor by at least one fairly reputable site (for what that is worth) that Apple may be releasing an update to Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.9) which will include iCloud support.

For now, and this is sanctioned, iCloud is available in OS 10.6.8 via browser access. It works great - when it works.

I've just learned about this... is it true that ONLY iWorks docs & data are affected by the "dissappearing" problem?

Also, it seems that personally backing up to Time Machine will save all things deleted by iCloud.

Also, since earliest days of Macintosh, my computers have always confirmed I want to delete something before doing so. It seems prudent and proper for iCloud to do this also... or at least give users the opportunity to give permission for deletions. I know I can mistakenly dump material and MUST have a safety option like "confirmation" of orders to delete, and suspect most others need that too.

Certainly on your first point, I can confirm it WASN'T just iWorks Documents that were deleted in my instance. I not only lost all my Pages & Numbers documents, but also all the data that was stored for Soundhound, Jaws, DoodleJump, AwesomeIdea and TinyEditor. Everything was deleted. I found it all in the Mobile Documents.deleted folder, but it's pretty useless as I can't get it back into the apps from there.

I'm not sure backing up to Time Machine will help. It only helps with data on your Mac, documents you create on your iPad are stored in iCloud, not on the iPad, and therefore not copied to your Mac. The other issue is if you DO save it on Time Machine, how the heck do you restore it to your iDevice? There's no way of restoring a single application's data.

There IS a confirmation, when you sign out of iCloud, that your data will be deleted. The problem is it's being deleted off iCloud completely. If you have multiple devices for your iCloud account (i.e. my iMac, iPhone & iPad) you don't want the data deleted off iCloud if you are simply removing your iCloud account from your iPhone. It needs to stay in iCloud so it's still accessible from my iPad & iMac.

This does work!!! I didn't see mine in the folder at first, but they were in my time machine backup. I kind of want a job with Apple now since I figured out something that the Genius bar, nor AppleCare phone support could figure out haha. I am just so relieved that I back up with Time Machine and don't have to spend another 5 hours writing Exegesis Papers now!

I'm never using iCloud for Pages documents AGAIN.

texinick wrote:

Certainly on your first point, I can confirm it WASN'T just iWorks Documents that were deleted in my instance. I not only lost all my Pages & Numbers documents, but also all the data that was stored for Soundhound, Jaws, DoodleJump, AwesomeIdea and TinyEditor. Everything was deleted. I found it all in the Mobile Documents.deleted folder, but it's pretty useless as I can't get it back into the apps from there.

Why can't you get your documents back from the .delete. folder? I have managed to get my iWorks documents back from there multiple times by now. I can't see why this should not work the same for other application documents...

In my Point of view it's unbelievable that the iCloud didn't get it's own time machine (versioning). We need a possibility to correct a mistake (from us self or from apple). Dropbox can do that from the beginning!!! Apple, please make your homework and does not release such incomplete stuff like that!

I have a presentation in two hours, and ALL my iWork documents that wered stored in iCloud ARE GONE!!!

my OS is 10.7.2 (Lion)

documents on my ipad, iphone,... ALL GONE!!!!!

Apple, you can't be serious!?!?!!!???!